Beneens converts its wood waste into heat and electricity
Sustainable heating
When the heating unit of the company needed replacing in 2009, former owner Karel Beneens decided the time had come to invest in a new, sustainable installation that ran on the wood waste produced by the company.
The goal was to install a system that produces both heat and electricity.
It soon became apparent that the wood waste produced by the company was not sufficient to meet energy demands. Therefore, the Beneens company contacted VITO to conduct a feasibility study of the project. VITO studied which business model should be used, looked at the business case and how to optimise the system.
Meeting its own electricity demand
To realise the project, both partners took part in the MIP project B-Wood2Energy and the European Horizon2020 project Story. In the future, the installation can be expanded with a heat grid to deliver heat to neighbouring companies. Johan Van Bael of VITO: “On the one hand, VITO studied whether cooperation with other companies to supply wood waste to burn was possible. On the other, it checked whether it was feasible to install an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) to generate energy and meet the electricity demand of the company. We also added several innovative aspects.”
Joeri Beneens, owner of the Beneens company: “At the end of April 2016, we connected all the pipes to the new system and put the installation into use. We will continue implementing the sustainability vision of my late father, Karel Beneens. Not only with this project, but also with our new office building, which combines energy-saving techniques and will of course be provided with electricity and heat by the new installation.
Our ultimate goal is to become an energy-neutral company.”
