A “woody biomass power plant” that uses trees as fuel to generate power is spreading in Hokkaido. As one of the renewable energies , while being positioned in the national energy basic plan , three years later, the output is expected to be three times the current output. The power plants that have been in operation so far have mainly used thinned wood in Hokkaido, but in the future large-scale power plants that also use imported wood fuel will be the main force. The issues surrounding power generation are also emerging.
A row of tens of meters of thinned wood inside the power plant
There is ” Tomakomai biomass power generation” in the port area of Tomakomai City . Thinned timbers with a diameter of 30 cm or less are lined up on the site adjacent to the power generation facility and piled up to a height of about 5 meters. The series extends over several tens of meters and is lined up in multiple layers. The total volume is about 30,000 cubic meters. After drying it for about half a year in the open air, it is crushed into chips with a length of 4, 5 cm using a large machine called a chipper. Burn it in a boiler and use the heat to generate electricity.
It has a power generation capacity of 6.2 MW and supplies electricity for 13,000 ordinary households. It was 2017 when commercial operation began. Mitsui & Co. , Ltd. and a local timber-related company, Iwakura, invested in it and launched it. Of the province that have not been effective use thinned wood in the local production for local consumption of renewable energy to make a, trying to contribute to the activation of forestry’s aim is that.
Initially, it was difficult to adjust the water content of the tree and the combustion temperature, but now stable operation is possible.