Sweet plans for renewable power in Qld

Monday, 19 September, 2016

Sweet plans for renewable power in Qld

MSF Sugar owns and operates four sugar mills with a total crushing capacity of 4.7 million tonnes and produces around 550,000 tonnes of raw sugar per annum.

MSF Sugar has announced that a $75m green power station will be built at its Tableland Sugar Mill near Mareeba in Far North Queensland. It will use a 100% renewable sugar cane fibre, known as bagasse, to produce 24 MW of electricity — enough to power every house in the Tableland region.

The green power station is expected to have sufficient bagasse to run for around 8–9 months of the year, but the company is looking to extend that to 11 months by using other feedstocks such as cane trash, peanut shell, sawdust wastes and the like.

Bagasse, a natural cellulose fibre found in sugarcane, is used to power boilers that produce steam under high pressure. This steam is used to power turbo-alternators that produce electricity — much like those found in hydroelectric power plants.

The company said the emissions from the sugar mill will not increase as a result of this project. It said the project will be using new state-of-the-art boiler and emissions reduction technology, with no increase in emissions. It will also be recycling waste from the power generation process back on to its cane farms, adjacent to the sugar mill.

MSF Sugar CEO Mike Barry said the Tableland Sugar Mill power station is the first of hopefully four green power stations to be built by MSF Sugar, with the others in the early stages of planning for construction at its sugar mills at Mulgrave near Cairns, South Johnstone near Innisfail and at Maryborough.

“The go-ahead for the remaining three green power stations will depend on the success of the Tableland project as well as stability in the relevant legislation. If all four green power stations are completed it will equate to approximately 100 MW of renewable power generation capacity.

“Building this renewable power station is the next step in our long-term vision to transition our industry towards producing a range of higher value products, moving away from mills that produce solely raw sugar,” Barry said.

It is expected that in the future, the company’s cane growers will produce cane varieties for sugar, power and other value-added products that will make the industry more profitable for all.

Construction at the Tableland Sugar Mill is expected to commence in May 2017 with completion planned for June 2018.

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