Biomass combustion plants generate combined heat and power by burning fuels that are sustainable and readily available. It is an alternative to coal, gas and nuclear power generation and is now more widely used for smaller community generation plants. JE was commissioned to perform project due diligence for investors looking to place funds with an ingenious scheme to burn sawdust in a sawmill to generate the power needed for all the cutting machinery.

The investment company wanted to be assured of the viability of the project to develop a specialist biomass generator. On the face of it, this was a perfect recycling application to burn sawdust within the sawmill to generate power and heat for the factory. However, the business and investment case was predicated on the timely production and delivery of the equipment and the precise arrangements for selling electricity back to the national grid.  The design of the equipment was being modified to burn sawdust rather than the coconut palm biomass it had been originally specified for. Further, the production and testing was planned to take place in Malaysia. This introduced complex logistics that needed to be scheduled. JE assisted in this scheduling along with the creation of the full requirements specification for the conversion.

This was a unique assignment since the client was a group of investors and not the engineering company running the project. Specialist planning and scheduling plus systems engineering was required to satisfy the investment team that they had applied due diligence

WHAT JACKMAN ENTERPRISES DELIVERED

• Top level overview of project viability
• Expert witness style due diligence reports to investment team
• Detailed review of plans and schedules
• Creation of schedules of sufficient detail for the venture
• Creation of detail requirement specification
• On the job mentoring of key staff in systems engineering best practices

SCALE

• 500 kg per hour biofuel feed flow
• 600 kW electrical generation
• Saw dust and wood chips combustion at 800°C
• Sawmill fully self sufficient for heat and power
• Sell back excess electricity to grid