Fire-hit biomass plant in Japan to start up in 2025
Japanese utility Osaka Gas' 5MW Sodegaura biomass power plant, will begin commercial operations around April-September 2025, following delays caused by a silo fire in January 2023.
The fire at the Sodegaura plant in Chiba prefecture happened during test runs, and Osaka Gas has concluded that the cause of the fire was the combustion of wood pellets stored for more than six months in two silos, the company said on 3 July. The company has established countermeasures, such as a nitrogen injection system that has already been installed near its four silos and can prevent temperature increases.
The other countermeasures also include bringing wood pellets out of silos to lower their temperature every three months or so, although this duration depends on the seasons and other conditions.
The plant was initially supposed to begin commercial operations by the end of February 2023, but its start-up was delayed because of the fire. Osaka Gas struggled to extinguish the fire and only managed to put it out completely in May 2023, four months after the fire started inside the silos. The company finally finished removing all remaining wood pellets from the silos in April this year, as the pellets had absorbed sprayed water and swelled.
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