The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality is taking comment until Nov. 24 on a draft air approval for The Andersons Inc. to expand an ethanol plant, with a 7-MW combined heat and power (CHP) plant to be part of that expansion.
The proposed CHP system has a natural gas-fired combustion turbine with a duct burner and heat recovery steam generator. The MDEQ’s Air Quality Division (AQD) has evaluated this proposal and made a preliminary determination that it will not violate any of the MDEQ’s rules nor the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).
The Andersons is proposing to install the following equipment to increase ethanol production:
- Three new enclosed corn conveyors.
- Four new corn mills that will be controlled by fabric filter baghouses.
- Five new fermenters that will be controlled by a new scrubber.
- Additional cooking and liquefaction equipment, a second distillation system, additional solids separation equipment, and two new dryers. All of this equipment will be controlled by a new thermal oxidizer.
- A DDGS cooling drum to replace the existing DDGS cooling cyclone. The new cooling drum will be controlled by a fabric filter baghouse.
- A 1.5 million gallon denatured ethanol storage tank equipped with an internal floating roof.
- Two new dual arm denatured ethanol truck loadout racks that will be controlled by a new flare.
- A new cooling tower equipped with mist eliminators
The CHP system would generate 7 MW of electrical power and steam for the facility. The CHP system can operate in three modes: turbine only, turbine and duct burner together, and duct burner only. The turbine will be equipped with a Dry Low NOx (SoLoNOx) system that will reduce the NOx emissions. The facility is located in Calhoun County, which is currently designated as attainment/unclassified for all criteria pollutants.
