Abstract
Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) technology is nowadays considered as interesting option for utilization of local biomass resources. The number of plants worldwide is constantly growing within typical range of electric power output form 0.2 to 3.0 MW. In such systems biomass combustion chambers with step or vibrating grates are used. Heat is transferred to the thermal oil in a separate spiral heat exchanger. The biggest problems in such system are variable and inaccurately predictable properties of biomass that directly influences operation of combustion equipment, and thus the performance of entire cogeneration plant. In this paper experiences from two plants are presented. The plants are located in Krosno (Poland) and in Ostfildern near Stuttgart, Germany. In the first one high quality wood chips are used whereas the second one is powered by low quality biomass with the mass ash content approaching 18%. Although similar, both plants use different strategies to control the combustion process. Long term measurements are used to develop biomass combustion models in the plants. The paper also presents results of implementation of the online optic measurement system for monitoring of biomass properties such as LHV, ash and water content.
Highlights
Biomass is nowadays in Europe the most important source of primary renewable energy
In practice the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) technology coupled to the biomass combustion is the only technology that is widely used
The share of biomass fired plants is 11% with 301 MW of the electric power installed in 332 ORC units
Summary
Biomass is nowadays in Europe the most important source of primary renewable energy. In 2016 wood and other solid biofuels as well as renewable wastes represented a share of 49.4 % of total 211 Mtoe of primary renewable energy production [1]. The share of biomass fired plants is 11% with 301 MW of the electric power installed in 332 ORC units. Biomass fired cogeneration systems based on the ORC technology are relatively simple, low pressure and modular solutions, typically running in fully automatic mode driven by the required heating power. The biggest problem of biomass fired cogeneration plants with ORC units is effective control of the combustion process. Prado et al [6] presented research on energy performance of district heating CHP plants based on biomass boilers and ORC generators. In this paper operation and performance of two biomass combustion systems of cogeneration plants with ORC units is discussed. The first system is municipal district heating cogeneration plant in Krosno (Poland) with the biomass boiler delivered by VAS Energy Systems International GmbH and the Turboden 14 CHP ORC unit. Technical specifications of both systems studied in this paper are presented in Tab. 1
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