In association with western Japan's Higashiomi City and the Shiga Prefectural governement, Yanmar Co. began tests of a wood biomass power generation unit on September 17, 2006, following completion of the facilities. The joint study to utilize wood resources for power generation has been underway since April 2006. Implementing a three-year test operation from 2006 to 2009, they intend to create and expand self-efficient and sustainable regional communities with an integrated system capable of collecting, converting and utilizing wood biomass.

In the test, various resources, such as sawmill residues, pruned branches and bamboo collected by Higashiomi City are gasified to generate fuel gas. The gas is converted into electricity (22 kW/h) and heat in the Dual Fuel Co-generation System, which is capable of constant power production, even with low-calorie gas. Biomass utilization is expected to not only contribute to the curbing of fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, but also bring multiple benefits to the community, including waste resources, vermin control in the local hills and mountains, revitalization of mountain villages, and flood control through forestry preservation work.

Shiga Prefecture aims to be a model prefecture for citizen involvement by promoting the new energy system and introducing biomass electricity generation (approx. 2000 kW/h) by 2010. Higashiomi City, which has been working to establish community models for resource recycling, will study the development of a new model that allows the combined use of bio-diesel fuel and wood biomass in power generation. Yanmar Co. has developed and distributed durable cogeneration systems and will look to build up new energy technologies using biomass fuels.



Posted: 2007/02/19 11:01:02 AM
Japanese version

TAG Energy , Local government , Manufacturing industry