Orsted celebrates 50th anniversary of Studstrup Power Station

Orsted is celebrating the 50^th anniversary of one of Denmark’s largest power stations. The then coal-fired Studstrup Power Station was inaugurated on Oct. 18, 1968, and converted to fire wood pellets in October 2016.

“Studstrup Power Station is the story of a power station adapting, throughout its lifespan, to society’s demands for how we produce heat and power. It was built as a coal-fired power station with the primary task of ensuring power for Danish homes,” said Power Station Manager Carsten Ruders, who had his first day at Studstrup Power Station 33 years ago.

“Today, the power station has been converted to run on wood pellets from sustainable forests instead of coal,” he added. “And the power station’s current primary task is to produce green district heating for some 106,000 Aarhus homes and to supplement the Danish power generation from solar and wind power.”

Information released by Orsted explains that the Studstrup Power Station was inaugurated unit 1 in October 1968. The station’s unit 3 and unit 4 were commissioned in 1984 and 1985, respectively.

A biomass conversion project began in 2014 to allow the station to burn wood pellets instead of coal in unit 3. The project was completed in 2016. Following the conversion, unit 3 has the capacity to produce 360 MW of electricity and 510 megajouls per second of heat. 

According to Orsted, the facility currently consists of two units, unit 3 and unit 4. While unit 3 is fueled by biomass, unit four is a spare unit fueled by coal.

As part of the conversion project, a storage silo with the capacity to store 65,000 metric tons of wood pellets was constructed at the power station site, along with the installation of more than 800 meters of closed conveyor belts to transport wood pellets from the harbor to the silo and into the boiler.

Orsted has set a goal to phase out its use of coal completely by 2023.