The Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority (WAPA) Governing Board has approved a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Tibbar Energy USVI LLC for a biomass project on St Croix in the Virgin Islands.
According to a joint press release from WAPA and Tibbar, the St Croix based renewable energy company Viaspace will generate and sell to the utility 7MW of base load power generated from Giant King Grass.
“We look forward to supplying renewable energy at a lower cost to the people and businesses of St. Croix” said Tania Tomyn, the CEO of Tibbar Energy. “Tibbar's process will consist of growing Giant King Grass, a non-invasive, USDA approved agricultural energy crop on 1,500 acres which will then be fed to the anaerobic digestion facility. The naturally occurring biological process of anaerobic digestion creates bio-gas which is then fed into biogas generators to generate the 7 MW of power that will be sold to the local utility. This Power Purchase Agreement approval is a major milestone for our company, and having Giant King Grass as a reliable, dedicated feedstock for our anaerobic digester is key to our project.”
Tibbar Energy is working with Layne Heavy Civil Inc, based in Misson Woods, Kansas, and the project should be completed and generating power by June 2015. Layne Heavy Civil Inc is one of North America’s largest waste water treatment, engineering, construction and procurement contractors and has been responsible, along with Entec, for most of the preliminary design thus far. The project utilizes anaerobic digestion (AD) which mimics the process in a cow’s stomach in order to produce bio methane. This is then used in an engine generator to produce clean renewable and low carbon electricity with organic fertilizer as a by-product. Many thousands of AD plants are already in operation in Europe, providing electricity to 3 million homes in Germany alone.
Alongside its use as a feedstock for AD plants, Giant King Grass can also be used in power plants to produce high-pressure steam that turns a turbine to generate 10MW to 35MW of electricity.
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