The biogas plant served to secure the family farming business and established itself as a useful addition in a region characterised by arable farming, pig farming and cow farming.
The Struckmann family’s biogas plant, located north of Hanover directly on the Steinhuder Meer, was put into operation in 2009 with a 150 kilowatt ignition source from SCHNELL. Steffen Struckmann sees the biogas plant, which runs exclusively on renewable raw materials and manure, as a sensible and promising addition to the family farm. This also includes cattle rearing with 170 livestock units and an agricultural area of 130 hectares. ‘Over the years, our biogas plant has been gradually expanded with more efficient combined heat and power units and a fermentation residue vaporiser (Vapogant from Biogastechnik Süd). This evaporates the water in the fermentation residue and reduces the amount of fermentation residue produced by 50 per cent. As a result, it was possible to dispense with the cost-intensive addition of further storage volume. This ensures complete heat extraction in the future and improves the economic efficiency of the plant,’ says Mr Struckmann, describing the further development of his biogas plant.
‘Until 2015, we bought all our accessories from CHP manufacturers and service providers. The initial decision in favour of Emission Partner was the lower price of spark plugs and filters, which my wife found after thorough research on the Internet in Emission Partner’s online shop. We were so impressed by the quality of the products that we have extended our co-operation year on year. The catalytic converters safely and reliably comply with the promised limit values. The catalytic converter for our SISU engine was a special part and only Emission Partner was able to help at short notice. Due to the in-house production, the special part catalytic converter was manufactured within two weeks and the emission measurement was passed safely with a measured value of 4 mg/Nm³ formaldehyde,’ adds Struckmann with satisfaction.
Engines:
SCHNELL-Scania ES1807 (150 kW)
SCHNELL-SISU (75 kW)
SCHNELL-Scania 8V20.1BO (250 kW)
Agrikomp-ScaniaDC13 BGA 136 (250 kW)
