In Gardanne, RBL-REI has built the largest biomass platform in FranceView of the Curvoduc ™ connecting the Mounine to the power plant, photo RBL-REI The Curvoduc ™ brings the chips produced on the milling site of the Mounine to 800m of the boiler room, photo RBL-REIThe feeding of the biomass boiler of PR4, with a power of 400 MWth, requires to receive, prepare, store and convey 850 000 tons of wood per year. This volume is equivalent to that of a small paper mill, which is not extraordinary in terms of dimensions for an industrial project. This volume is divided into four categories of products, hereinafter listed with the quantities that will eventually pass each year through the installation:
- 505 000 tons of wood chips,
- 130 000 tons of round wood shredding on site,
- 130 000 tonnes of crushed green waste,
- 85 000 of A and B Class A Reclaimed Wood Crushed Wood.
Since the plant has to work 7500 hours per year, the theoretical average equipment throughput is 113 tons of wood per hour, ie 2720 tons or 110 trucks per day. Of course for a whole series of reasons, the equipment does not all work 24 h / 24 and on many positions larger sizing has been done by RBL-REI to group these flows on a smaller number of working hours. Thus, the wood receiving stations have been sized to accommodate up to 240 trucks per day (in practice it is maximum 140) and conveyor chains to be able to transport up to 3200 m³ per hour, for some, while the boiler only consumes between 350 at 450 m³ / h per hour. These over-sizing, of course, also serve to manage a whole series of crisis situations, anticipated situations such as localized breakdowns, with each envisaged case of a planned and dimensioned fallback solution.
The round wooded area of MounineFor the reception, measurement, storage, and shredding of roundwood, RBL-REI has equipped the entire Mounine Timber Park, a park of 7 ha located next to the plant. Timber trucks are received with weighing and sampling on the logs by sampling with a fixed chainsaw. This stock of buffer wood, which amounts to 30 000 tons, does not stay long at the Mounine and flows in a permanent bearing to keep the freshness and the calorific value of the wood.
The logs are then taken by shovel to pass to the mill. The grinding is carried out in a closed building so as to protect the equipment, but also to confine the noise and to treat the working air by suction and dedusting.
The grinding platform for round wood is equipped with a SAALASTI grinder, photo RBL-REIAt the end of the mill, the wood is conveyed directly to the boiler room or stacked on a paved area by a polar storer and forming a bean stock of 5000 m³ capacity. From there, as needed, platelets made in P63 size are taken from the magazine and dumped into a hopper that feeds a Curvoduc ™ curved conveyor, in elevation for transfer to the plant.
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