The 10MWe and 22MWth plant to be fuelled entirely by wood residues from forestry and wood processing operations will supply heat to more than 500 homes in the town of Sala, north of Stockholm, Shell Renewables announced on 30 August.
Shell Renewables has ambitious targets of achieving a 10% global market share in biomass wood energy production and conversion to marketable energy by 2010, and to have several hundred megawatts of capacity installed by 2005.
The company, which was established as a fifth core business for the Royal Dutch Shell Group in 1997, has a budget of US$500 million to develop commercial businesses in solar, biomass, wind and forestry. It has identified Scandinavia as a focus for the biomass market as there is an abundance of solid wood fuels for CHP plants.
Energy production fuelled by sustainably grown biomass is almost CO2 neutral i.e. the volume of CO2 emitted by the plant will be re-absorbed by the trees as future fuel, thereby helping to reduce global CO2 emissions.