Technology Status - NET Nowak Energie & Technologie AG

118
The main biomass resources are:
● agricultural residues and wastes (straw, animal manure, etc.);
● organic fractions of municipal solid waste and refuse;
● sewage sludge;
● industrial residues (e.g., from the food and paper industries);
● short-rotation forests (willow, poplar, eucalyptus);
● herbaceous ligno-cellulosic crops (miscanthus);
● sugar crops (sugar beet, sweet sorghum, Jerusalem artichoke);
● starch crops (maize, wheat);
● oil crops (rape seed, sunflower);
● wood wastes (forest residues, wood processing waste, construction
residues).
In the long term, energy crops could be a very important biomass fuel source.
At present, however, wastes (wood, agricultural, municipal or industrial) are
the major biomass sources.
Technology Factors
Biomass offers many applications for power generation, from co-generation
to distributed generation. In some areas, biopower can compete with
conventional base-load power in the 30-100 MW range or provide electricity
for specific services. Worldwide biopower generation capacity is expected to
grow by more than 30 GW by 2020.
Co-firing offers power plant managers a relatively low-cost and low-risk way
to add biomass capacity. When low-cost biomass fuels are used, co-firing
systems can have payback periods as short as two years. According to US
DOE, a typical coal-fuelled power plant produces power for about USD cents
2.3/kWh. Co-firing inexpensive biomass fuels can reduce this cost to USD
cents 2.1/kWh. Interest in co-firing is growing in the US, in some of the
developing countries like China, where coal firing plays an important role,
and in some European states (Nordic countries and the Netherlands).
Biomass can substitute for up to 15% of the total energy input by modifying
little more than the burner and feed intake systems. Since large-scale power
boilers in the current 310 GW portfolio in the US range from 100 MW to
1.3 GW each, the biomass potential in a single boiler ranges from 15 MW to
150 MW. Today’s co-firing systems range from 1 to 30 MW of biopower
capacity. The way the biomass is fired depends upon its proportion in the
fuel mix: a) for minor quantities (2-5%), the biomass can be mixed with the
BIOPOWER X5