EPCM was appointed as Owner’s Engineers to provide services for the establishment and development of a Biogas power plant to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The project was initiated to make the CSIR’s main campus in Pretoria energy autonomous by supplying its energy from solar, wind and biogas from biogenetic waste.

The power generators will be combined with electricity and heat storage, integration of electric and hydrogen-driven vehicles, power-to-liquids and power-to-gas processes, demand-side management and energy-efficiency measures. The power plant will have an installed baseload capacity of 10 MW from biogas when the solar and wind energy are not available. The biogas plant will have a CHP facility where heat energy will also be produced onsite

Services Provided:

  • Assessment of possible energy conversion technology and digester types
  • Feedstock selection
  • Calculating reactor volume, sludge retention time and organic loading rate based on feedstock analysis results
  • Determination of heat capacity based on the power output from a CHP facility
  • Heat usage optimisation
  • Biogas storage design
  • Laboratory testing facility design
  • Engineering design
  • CAPEX & OPEX estimations
  • Market assessment
  • Business model development
  • EPC contractor Scope of Work compilation
  • Facilitation during EIA phase
  • Facilitation during construction and commissioning; and
  • Local content estimations for the biogas plant.