HoSt Bioenergy Biowaste to Bioenergy

BIOWASTE TO BIOENERGY

Jelle Klein Teeselink, Managing Director at HoSt Bioenergy, discusses how the company transforms waste into energy and other valuable end-products

Writer: Sean Galea-Pace | Project Manager: Nicholas Kernan

BIOENERGY

Transforming waste into energy is invaluable.

Doing so while offering hightech systems with efficient and clean conversion technology is even better. Enter HoSt Bioenergy.

The firm is a global industry-leader in the technology space that produces both sustainable energy and valuable end-products from residual streams which strive to help create a zerowaste society. As such, HoSt stands out as a leader in technological innovation that contributes to the success of a circular economy and the development and acceleration of the wider energy transition.

The organisation was founded in 1991 by Herman Klein Teeselink as a result of a joint venture between Holec Projects and Stork — two well-established suppliers of energy systems and innovative energy technologies. The business has always operated independently under family ownership, and with the second generation of management now in place and with over 200 employees across offices in seven countries, the future of the business is secure for the coming decades.

Over the last three decades, HoSt developed a full-technology suite built around renewable energy: anaerobic digestion, upgrading of biogas to biomethane, CO2 capture and liquefaction and bio-LNG, and renewable heat and electricity through thermal conversion of wood waste, RDF and waste which makes HoSt the most complete player on the market in terms of deepness of technology scope.

As a company, HoSt is a one-stopshop in terms of technology portfolio scope where, alongside the building of bioenergy facilities, it also offers 24/7 service and maintenance and renewably energy as a service for heat, electricity, and gas where it has a portfolio of 10 own renewable energy plants that supply renewable energy by the end of 2021. To date, HoSt has built over 300 bioenergy installations in more than 30 countries across four continents of which the oldest facilities are now running more than two decades and are still operational.

Innovation and entrepreneurship are deeply rooted within the company with all technologies being the result of in-house development, included several patented technologies and a strong R&D pipeline for the coming years. HoSt has been able to streamline standardise its product lines thereby becoming industry leader in terms of efficiency, ROI, and sustainability, lowest emissions and innovations.

The current market environment is a huge opportunity for HoSt. “Our technologies with modularised setup are economically viable and easy to deploy worldwide where we see a lot of underlying momentum in the market,” explains Klein Teeselink. “This is driven by an increased awareness of the required acceleration of the energy transition and new taxation on the usage of fossil energy. We see a lot of renewables getting cheaper due to maturing technology, wide acceptance that the energy transition should be accelerated, and fossil fuels becoming more expensive due to carbon taxing with renewables being cost competitive in many cases.”

The Netherlands for example has a substantial agricultural sector with significant untapped feedstock which makes the country suitable

HOST BIOENERGY:

AT A GLANCE

HoSt is a one-stop-shop technology provider where, besides a commercial business of selling renewable energy technology, the company also has its own portfolio of renewable energy facilities. This allows HoSt to offer energy as a service, and at the same time function as R&D test facilities, for example both its biogas upgrading technology and a variety of carbon capture technologies are developed and tested at its own plants. HoSt has a large in-house R&D capacity and strong links with technical universities and research institutes which led to development of several patented technologies.

Powerspex

25 years ago Host and Powerspex originated from Stork boilers in Hengelo. Host as a specialised company in waste flows to energy and Powerspex specialised in process automation. Almost from the beginning of the founding a partnership originated that has endured to this very day.

With offices in Hengelo and Veenendaal and over 120 employees Powerspex executes turnkey process automation projects and total solutions all over the world. From feasibility studies to engineering, panel building, assembly, commissioning, Atex and after-care. In the founding years focussing mainly on energy, Powerspex can now be found in many markets like sustainable energy, oil & gas, marine, chemical and water.

Besides its core business Powerspex has developed a simulation platform, called PsxCad, that has the potential to revolutionize engineering. Build up into three layers: a physical layer, a software layer and a human machine interfacing layer, the platform is a dynamic model covering all aspects of designing and simulating processes.

Where the platform started as a simulation tool for training and testing, it is now being used for engineering purposes as well. Showcasing this is the Westland case where PsxCad is being used for engineering the integration of 7 separate heat districts and several geothermal energy installations into one heat district.

With 20 years of development and major power plants, waste to energy plants and several heat districts as references. PsxCad is ready to be launched as the first dynamic engineering tool.

www.powerspex.nl

“THE ENVIRONMENT FOR TALENT IS EXCITING AS PEOPLE GET THE OPPORTUNITY TO WORK AT THE FOREFRONT OF THE RENEWABLE ENERGY TRANSITION IN A HIGHLY ENTREPRENEURIAL

ORGANISATION” - JELLE KLEIN TEESELINK, MANAGING DIRECTOR, HOST BIOENERGY

for renewable gas production from manure. “Anaerobic digestion of manure prevents methane emission from manure, because it no longer remains in the stable and is pumped to the digester as soon as possible. This combined with production of renewable gas is a pure win-win,” says Klein Teeselink. “Despite the Netherlands being an important market and our HQ sitting within the country, the larger part of our revenue is generated in countries outside the Netherlands with a strong focus on the US, UK, France, and Germany.”

HARNESSING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

As the world continues to embrace a greener approach to operations across a plethora of industries, there is a growing interest in biofuels as the industrial environment of greenhouses, industrial processes and factories all begin to embrace greener alternatives. As such, Klein Teeselink is convinced that all personal vehicles will eventually transition to electricity, however, for long distance transport in both road and water, bio-CNG and bioLNG will play an influential role, one of the key in-house technologies of HoSt.

“The beauty of this solution is that both the technology to produce the bio-fuel and the vehicles are already there and are cost competitive (often even cheaper compared to fossil fuels) as people are already driving on CNG for decades - although in limited volumes,” explains Klein Teeselink. “It’s a quick way to decarbonise transport while solving the waste problem by transforming methane emitting waste into renewable bio-fuels.

AD Plant in Marrum, Netherlands

Biomethane Plant Brigt Biomethane, Netherlands

Biogas Plant, NoyalChâtillon, France

Fire Tube Biomass Boiler Plant AD Plant with biomethane output - Alphen, Netherlands

“We try to advocate this solution by constantly quantifying the benefits, but also through research studies, working alongside the wider industry including utilities, universities and government bodies, but most importantly by leading by example through our own production facilities as by the end of this year we will have seven fully-owned bioenergy production facilities, and counting.”

HoSt has recently established the cleanest bioenergy plant in the Netherlands through thermal conversion technology delivering renewable heat and electricity from waste wood. The company has spent the last 10 years reinventing the technology of thermal conversion to produce renewable heat and electricity from residual wood and waste streams.

“The R&D effort resulted in not only the cleanest bioenergy plant on the market in terms of emissions and efficiency, but also, enabled through our unique modularised and standardised design, in terms of building speed, compactness all at a significantly lower cost compared to other plants,” explains Klein Teeselink. “Both the design, the thermal conversion process and the flue gas cleaning technology are proprietary technology and fully in-house developed. Compared to natural gas solutions, nitrogen emissions are around 95 percent lower. We have now successfully made operational two facilities that produce renewable heat and electricity for greenhouses in the Netherlands with this type of design and technology.”

TECHNOLOGY DRIVE

Klein Teeselink is full of optimism about the future of the renewables market generally given the global necessity of transitioning away from fossil towards renewable energy. He believes that geographically, HoSt is experiencing strong momentum in the US but also in France, the UK and Germany.

KEY PROJECTS

HoSt Bioenergy is currently undertaking approximately 80 projects in construction across four continents, with every project marking an important milestone as a step closer to a sustainable energy mix and a zero-waste society.

• The company’s proprietary developed a bioenergy plant with thermal energy conversion technology in Andijk, the Netherlands producing both renewable heat and electricity for a greenhouse, with lowest emissions available in the market. A similar facility of this has just successfully been commissioned in Bemmel, Netherlands. Both facilities are produced with renewable heat and electricity as a service. • Constructing Australia’s first biomethane plant at wastewater treatment plant in Sydney. • HoSt’s own biomethane plant Wabico where HoSt produces biomethane for 10,000 homes from regional residual streams together with our its own developed carbon capture system which captures and liquefies the CO2 from the plant which is used in a greenhouse for crop growth. • Growing footprint in the United States with several projects now in final phase of construction including virtual pipeline technology (used when there is no gas injection point nearby).

FERRUM leads the way with flue gas cleaning and dedusting.

Plants for flue gas cleaning and dust removal are becoming increasingly complex and must constantly meet higher environmental requirements. FERRUM is perfectly suited to solve issues like these.

We know how to bring the most complicated projects to a successful conclusion. We do this turnkey ; from design, (pre-) engineering, supply, assembly, commissioning to after sales. Always together with our customers, for whom we are active in the steel-, cement-, glass- and chemical industry and in the energy sector.

www.ferrum.nl

Jotem Waterbehandeling

For many years, Jotem provides HoSt with de-aerators, “all in one” demi water skids and sample boards. Our intelligent “all-in-one” water treatment skids relieve HoSt optimally, so that they can focus on their core business.

Depending on the required O2 and conductivity level, Jotem supplies 1 or 2-stage de-aerators and RO systems. Eventually followed by ElectroDeIonization (EDI) or mixed bed units.

Jotem Water treatment is a wellknown specialist for well, source, surface, sea and waste water treatment, worldwide.

For over 55 years, we provide the right water quality for each process, followed by long term service and maintenance.

www.jotem.nl

“In terms of technology, we get most excited about our projects where we combine several parts of our technology portfolio, so for instance building a biogas facility with CO2 capture and liquefaction to potentially liquefying the biomethane, and on the thermal conversion side deploying our unique plant design all over the world together with our own carbon capture solution.”

Many companies are embracing technology into operations to allow for increased efficiency. This is especially true in sustainability as technology plays an influential role in solving the energy transition as the waste problem.

“Organic waste emits methane which is 20 times more potent for the environment than CO2,” says Klein Teeselink. “Deploying technology to turning those residual waste streams into energy and valuable end-products is therefore solving two problems at the same time and essential to achieve a net zero state in the future.”

INFLUENTIAL RELATIONSHIPS

Developing key, strategic relationships with partners is an important component of achieving long-term success. For HoSt, these partnerships are at the core.

“A strong and stable relationship with suppliers is fundamental for success,” he assures us. “We build our facilities so that they last for decades and don’t degrade on quality. In order to achieve this, we place very high requirements on our suppliers. We also see the supplier relationship as broader than just supplier–customer relationship.

“Our commercial partner network functions as an extension of ourselves in the local markets. We therefore see them as a core part of our organisation. They make sure that we are known in the market, but also play an important role in educating countries on the advantages of our technological solutions and enabling countries to move towards zero waste societies. We mostly look for partners with the same philosophy on quality and innovation while at the same time having a true passion for the renewable energy.”

Innovation is deeply rooted within the culture of HoSt as all technologies are fully developed in-house. According to Klein Teeselink, besides an in-house R&D team HoSt has several R&D facilities in the field of anaerobic digestion and thermal conversion.

“A good example is our fullyowned anaerobic digestion facility in Waalwijk, the Netherlands that produces biomethane, liquefied food-grade CO2 and bio-fertiliser,” explains Klein Teeselink. “Here, new innovations and technologies are tested before commercialised. Two examples are our membrane upgrading technology to filter biogas to produce biomethane and our CO2 liquefaction technology to liquefy captured CO2 that can then be used in greenhouses or the food industry.”

Cogeneration Plant Andijk, NL

TALENT MANAGEMENT

At HoSt, people are the heartbeat of the organisation. This means that retaining talent is vital and as a result of robust growth and high ambitions, it is hoped that business will be doubled in the years ahead. In order to accelerate recruitment, HoSt works closely with universities on R&D projects and also for the intake of trainees and interns.

“The environment for talent is exciting as people get the opportunity

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to work at the forefront of the renewable energy transition in a highly entrepreneurial organisation,” discusses Klein Teeselink. “In order to innovate on a continuous basis collaboration and knowledge sharing at a company-wide level are both key to enable as part of your culture in order to succeed.”

Harnessing a positive workplace culture that encourages, engages and empowers staff while ensuring they want to work for HoSt is important. As such, the company hosts business parties, encourages getting coffee for colleagues, provides an on-boarding gift, a card with a personal note from the team manager as well as a present and dinner at Christmas, birthday celebrations and many other initiatives to show how much each staff member is valued.

“Communication is vital, particularly when an organisation grows quickly,” explains Klein Teeselink. “Additionally, we just started with a global quarterly management update session on the organisation, strategy, R&D, sales and results and additionally monthly Q&A sessions where the organisation is able to address questions to the management. Questions are of course not limited to these sessions, we feel it is important that colleagues feel heard at all times”.

HoSt has a clear vision for the future. The firm foresees more of a holistic approach with waste to energy plants combined with CO2 carbon capture systems producing valuable CO2 alongside production of valuable end products such as bio-fertiliser. “The great thing is that all these technologies are readily available and provide attractive return on investment for investors and customers thereby providing a very economical win-win while contributing to a better planet,” discusses Klein Teeselink.

Moving forward, HoSt has a mission to play more of an influential role into developing a zero-waste society and driving the energy transition. “We have all the technologies in-house and aim to deploy them all over the world,” says Klein Teeselink. “We target to double in size every three years through organic growth and expansion of our product portfolio. Key priorities for growth in the coming years are the scaling-up our position in the US, further roll-out of our latest technological innovations around CO2 capture, bio-LNG and thermal conversion and expansion of our own to operate portfolio in Europe and the US, and beyond where the opportunities arise.”

Tel: +31 (0)53 – 460 90 80 info@host-bioenergy.com www.host-bioenergy.com