Thermal Utilization of Reed in a 3 MW District Heating Plant

Abstract

Within the project ENEREED reeds from the Lake Neusiedl in Austria is examined as energy resource for thermal utilization. The aim of the project is to investigate methods for thermal conversion technologies as well as develop pre-treatment technologies for using reed as cheap, locally available and renewable feedstock. This paper presents the investigations and experimental results of thermal utilization of reed in a 3 MWth commercial district heating plant dedicated for combustion of wood chips. The results of the fuel analysis show that reed is a high quality straw-type biomass with an ash deformation temperature of over 1400°C. Chopped reed were mixed with wood chips in various ratios and fed into the heating plant. The results show that the higher sulphur and chlorine content in reed causes a higher SO2 (25ppm) and HCl (1.6ppm) content in the flue gas. However, with higher ratios of reed in the feedstock no increasing of dioxins or heavy metals could be measured. At the end of the experiment a short run with pure reed was carried out. The experiments show that chopped reed is difficult to feed alone, which would requires a specific feeding system, but it was proven that reed is a suitable feedstock for commercial district heating plants.