Abstract
As new solutions are emerging to overcome climate change and adopt environmentally-friendly approaches to energy-intensive processes, biomass energy systems are one of the renewable energy technologies that can provide a solution to reduce energy consumption and pollution as it is a source of renewable energy that uses organic material such as the residues from plants and animals to generate electricity. In this paper, a performance evaluation of a biomass-powered steam power plant was done using the System Advisor Model (SAM) software. The location of the system’s operation was chosen to be in Fargo, the USA with latitude and longitude coordinates of 46.9 ºN and -96.8 ºE, respectively. The weather conditions of the location were investigated, and the characteristics of the three chosen biomass feedstocks were demonstrated and discussed. The plant specifications including the drying method, type of combustor, number of boilers, excess air, were selected and the system was tested accordingly. Different types of combustors were simulated, where it was found that the fluidized bed combustor is the most suitable type to be utilized for the application. The performance of the power plant was then tested according to several percentages of excess air, different temperatures of the flue gas, and different power cycle design temperatures. After testing the different values, they were fixed to then test the performance of the power plant using 100% bituminous coal, biomass-coal fractions, and 100% biomass and the effect of each parameter on the annual energy production, annual capacity factor, thermal and boiler efficiencies, and the gross heat rates was illustrated and discussed.
Published Version
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