Abstract
The advancements on gas boiler technology run in parallel with the growth of renewable energy production. The renewable production will impact on the fuel gas quality, since the gas grid will face an increasing injection of alternative fuels (biogas, biomethane, hydrogen). Biogas allows producing energy with a lower CO 2 impact; hydrogen production by electrolysis can mitigate the issues related to the mismatch between energy production by renewable and energy request. These technologies will contribute to achieve the renewable production targets, but the impact on whole fuel gas production-to-consumption chain must be evaluated. In the first part of this study, the Authors present the future scenario of the grid gas composition and the implications on gas fed appliances. Given that the widely used premixed burners are currently designed mainly by trial and error, a broader fuel gas quality range means an additional hitch on this design process. A better understanding and structuring of this process is helpful for future appliance-oriented developments. The Authors present an experimental activity on a premixed condensing boiler setup. A test protocol highlighting the burners' flexibility in terms of mixture composition is adopted and the system fuel flexibility is characterized around multiple reference conditions.
Highlights
Heating is a fundamental necessity especially in countries with cold climates, and gas fired boilers are currently satisfying large part of this heat demand in the domestic sector
A broader fuel gas quality range means an additional hitch on the burner design process: a better understanding and structuring of the today’s burner design process would be helpful in the future appliance-oriented research and developments
The proposed U-curve tracing is a fundamental first step to characterize the system fuel flexibility: comparing the mixture ratio tolerance required for the appliance and the obtained U curve an evaluation on the burner flexibility can be drawn
Summary
Heating is a fundamental necessity especially in countries with cold climates, and gas fired boilers are currently satisfying large part of this heat demand in the domestic sector. Additional difficulties are added to the burner development phase by budget, time and production cost factors [19] These difficulties would be even worsened by the forecasted wider grid gas quality range, discussed in detail in the previous sections. If the grid fuel gas composition will be more variable in the future, the premixed burners need to correctly operate under the consequent more variable air/gas ratio without problems. In this context, it is useful to generate knowledge on the premixed burners behaviour under variable fuel quality, with the aim of assisting future appliance-oriented burner design processes.
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