“The restart of the biomass unit underlines the company’s determination to make the Provence power plant an example of energy transition from coal to the production of carbon-free energies”, welcomed in a press release Jean-Michel Mazalerat, president of GazelEnergie.
France has decided to close its four coal-fired thermal power stations. The site of the former Gardanne-Meyreuil coalfield has chosen to convert to biomass by fueling its boiler with wood.
“At full power”, the 150 megawatt unit will be able to produce “the equivalent of household consumption in the city of Marseille” (860,000 inhabitants), advances management. But it will be necessary to wait for that until the plant has operated at full power for “a few months” to be considered fully operational.
A phase never reached since the first tests carried out in 2016 on the plant’s new biomass operating mode.
“We hope to get there this year,” a spokeswoman for GazelEnergie told AFP, explaining that the most delicate phase, which consists of coupling the plant to the electricity network, after the commissioning of the main boiler , had worked perfectly.
Source: franceinfo (2022)