Small scale cogeneration with biomass and biofuels - Bioenergy World

BIOENERGY WORLD AMERICAS –Salvador Bahia, Brasil, 2006 – David Chiaramonti 

UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE 

Small scale cogeneration 

with biomass and biofuels 

David Chiaramonti 

CREAR, c/o Department of Energetics “S.Stecco” 

University of Florence 

CREAR 



� R&D, design, construction and testing of energy systems and 

components 

� Biomass, Wind, Solar, SHP, geothermal 

� Integration RES-fossil fuels 

� Support/assistance to EC, Ministries, Regions, Provinces, 

Municipalities, etc 

CREAR MEMBERS (Official establishment: Jan 2005) 

� Engineering 

� Agro-Forestry 

Dipartimento di Economia Agraria 

e delle Risorse Territoriali 

� Earth science 

� Chemistry 

Dipartimento Scienze e Tecnologie 

Ambientali Forestali 

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Consorzio Sistemi a 

Grande Interfase 

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IMES 



� Intern.l Master on Energy and Environment (Univ .of Florence, Aston 

Univ ., New Univ .of Lisbon – Baylor, Arizona and Maryland Univ .s) 

THERMALNET (Intelligent Energy for Europe) 

� Network merging PyNe + GasNet + CombNet (Pyroly sis, Gasification, 

Combustion Networks) 

� The largest IEE proj ect 

� Leader of WP 3C – Education 

�� On Going SURVEY : www.crear.unifi.it/surv ey 

International Energy Agency (IEA) 

� Task 34, B iomass Pyrolysis 

ISES-Italia (Ital.sect. of Int.Solar Energy Society) 

� B oard member 

CREAR 

Overview 


� Small scale bioenergy cogeneration market: the Italian case 

� On going activities on small scale power and heat generation 

� R&D needs 

� Future perspectives 


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Italy 

RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES in Italy �� ~7 % of internal gross 

energy consumption (2004) Source Enea – Le Fonti Rinnovabili 2005 



RE production (% ), 2004 RES electricity production (% ), 2004 

RE production ( ktoe), 2004 

� Less than 1/3 of forest growth is harvested in Italy 

RES electricity production (ktoe), 2004 


� 22.3 % of families uses biomass foe energy (heat) generation 

� 11.7 % uses wood as main fuel 

� Wood energy in Italy corresponds to 3.1 times 

wind+solar+FV+geoth (i.e., excluding hydro) 

� (4921 ktoe compared to 1571 ktoe, ENEA 2004) 

Source: Corgnati e Pettenella, 2004 

Wood energy 


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2001 

200 4: 3 30 MW e (~30 0 MW e net) 

3.5 Mt/y @ 5 0 % mc (1. 8 t/ y DM) 

Wood energy 


Fonte: Eurobserv’ER, 2005 


�� Commercial tech.s available 

Biomass power 


�� Critical issue: 

Biomass supply (2.2 Mt/y) 

•Extra-regional market (> 60 %) 

•25-50 (avg 35) €/t 

•Multi-fuel plants (3) 

Potenza Consumo complessivo di Biomassa 

(MWe) ton/anno % 

0 - 5 199.000 8.9 

5 – 15 748.000 33.6 

> 15 1.280.000 57.5 

Strong interest 

in developing 

Short Chains 

…. but… 

Lack of reliable 

tech.s 

Source: 

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Biomass Combustion 




Biomass combustion for power generation 

� Existing commercial bioenergy plants 

� Are usually characterised by rather large dimensions, if based on standard 

steam (rankine) cycles 

� Have rather low efficiency: considerable amount of heat (or cold) need to be 

valorised to achieve economic sustainability 

� Only ORC cycles are competitive in the small scale 

� R&D in 

� Innovative / advanced cycles 

� Advanced thermochemical biomass conversion technologies 

could lead to new solutions 


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Example of traditional Combustion-based system 

� Wartsila BioPower 

2-25 MWth 

1-5 MWe 

� Power generation: 

- Steam turbines 

- Steam engines 

High reliability 

Low efficiency 



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Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) - Turboden 

Copyright © 2006 – Turboden S.r.l. All rights reserved 

18 % Electricity 

Thermal 

3 % 

Losses 





ORC main advantages 

� High thermod.cycle and turbine (up to 

85 %) efficiency 

� Low mech.stress (low periph.speed) on 

turbine blades, modif iedf or org.fluids 

� Direct connection to electrical generator 

(thanks to low rpm) 

� No blade erosion (no moisture in 

nozzles) 

100 % 

Thermal 

Energy 

in Oil 

79 % 

Avail. 

Heat 

Results 

� Easy sturt-up / shut-down 

� Automatic unmanned continuous 

operation 

� 3-5 person hour/week 

� No noise 

� Reliability/av ailability 

� Admont: more than 50.000 h, > 98 % 

� Part load down to 10 % design, high η 

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Unde r 

Cons tr uction 

In ope ration 

In In costruzione 

costruzione 

In funzione 

In funzione 

4 8 T500 

2 7 T600 

3 4 T800 

3 12 T 1100 

5 12 T1500 

1 T2000 

HR 

- 44 plants in operation 

- 18 under construction 

� Fossil 

� Diesel/gas engines, gas turbines, 

hot flue gases 

� Renewable 

� Biomass, solar, geothermal 

applications 


Examples of innovative cycles/applications 


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� Biomass combustion for trigeneration 

E conomi ser and 

air pre-heater 

� Combined use of lignocellulosic biomass and CH 4 



Microgasturbines for biopower BIO_MGT 

S econdary 

combusti on chamber 

P rimary combusti on 

chamber 

� External combustion cycle 

Pellet Bio 

Furnace 

� Expected advantages in terms 

of plant reliability/performances 

compared to gasification and 

internal combustion in GT 


4 EU Countries - 7 Partners 

Location of the BIO_MGT plant 

at “Il Forteto” (T uscany, I) 


Microgasturbines for biopower BIO_MGT 

Cyclon 

Mixer 

Exha ust gas to the 

C ogeneration 

Heat Hexchanger 

GT Inte rnal Combustor 

fired by NG 

Micro GT 

C1 

He at 

Excha ng. 

CC1 

Chi lle r 

Hea t Exc 

Cold 

T1 

He at 

Powe r 

~ 

Mix er 

Biomas s 

Furna ce 

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VOICE (Veg.Oil.Initiative for a Cleaner Environment) 

EC-Life Environment 

Use of straigh sunflower oil for energy and 

transports 


� Sunflower oil chemical and 

phisical characteristics 

� are different from rape oil (on 

which most of the experience in 

engine adaptation has been 

developed in Europe) 

� depend on the extraction method 

(centralised vs decentralised) 

� These characteristics are 

important for energy generation 

technology 

Sunflower oil vs rape oil 



DIN 51605 

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VOICE – Ren.En.Technologies 

• 5 kWe DACHS-Senertec 

engines 

• 60 kWe taglia 

• MGT - 30 kWe 

• Microstirling (1 kWe) 

• Greenhouse and school 

heating 




VOICE (Veg.Oil.Initiative for a Cleaner Environment) 

� Capstone MGT C30 (30 kWe) converted to 

Straight Vegetable Oil (sunflower) 

� Pure Plant Oil, Not Biodiesel 

Decentralised extraction 

Potential Advantages – MGTs vs small scale (adapted) diesel engines 

� Good perf ormances (efficiency ) 

� Low emissions 

� High reliability 

� Lubrication 

� Experience from engine conv ersion (adaptation kit) usef ulf or MGT conv ersion 

� Critical issues 

� Combustion quality 

� Deposits 

� Compactness of MGT-Combustion chambers 


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Gasification / pyrolysis 


Gasification 

Gasification: : Fixed bed plant 


AIR 

PRODUCT GAS 

CYLINDRICAL 

CHAMBER 

NOZZLE 

THERMOCOUPLE 



BIOMASS 

PRODUCT GAS 

PRODUCT GAS 

REFRACTORY 

WALL 

COMBUSTION 

REDUCTION 

ZONE 

� Air blown ga sifie rs, 30-8 0 kW e 

� Down draft gasifi er 

� Internal combustion engin e 

�Many examples of pre-commercial plants in EU: The Netherland, German y, Denmark, Spain, UK… 

… and in India ! … 

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Gasification 

� Performance guarantees ? 

� Investigation by M.Lauer, Johanneum, 

for Styria investors – RESULTS: 

� There is a small number of wood gas 

CHP system providers in Europe willing 



and able to give guarantees to reduce the technical risk of the investors 

� Issues: CO emissions, reliability 

� None of the providers is able to present a realised plant as a reference that 

has been in continuous commercial operation for sufficient time, 

Pyrolysis 

� A lot of research done so far on biomass PO for power 

in engines and turbines 

� Chiaramonti, Oasmaa, Solantausta. Pow er Generation using fast pyrolysis liquids from 

biomass. Sustainable Energy Review s, Elsevier. 

� Not so much success until now, excluding rankine 

cycles 

� Recent work by 

� PYTECH : ablative pyrolysis, diesel engine 

� ORENDA-Dynamotive: fast pyrolysis oil in 2.5 MWe gas 

turbines 

� Long term demo still needed 

� Interest in biomass pyrolysis today focused on 2nd 

generation biofuel production 

� Pyrolysis as “pretreatement stage” followed by gasification 



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Univ.Rostok 

�Tests on a small standard (no 

modified) scale GT, 75 kW nominal 

Deutz T 216 micro gas turbine: singleshaft, 

single staged radial compressor 

and turbine design, TIT = 850 °C. 

�Tested fuel: PO from poplar, 

produced by BTG – Rotating Cone 

Technology 

�Dual mode operation 

Source: Dr.-Ing Detlef Wendig, Rostok Univ. 

Combustion chamber after first 

(top) and PO (bottom) tests 


Orenda (CAN) 

� Among the first works on pyrolysis oil in GT by Orenda Aerospace 



� 2.5 MWe class – GT2500 turbomachine, designed and built by Mashproekt in 

Ukraine, which has been operated from idle to full power with PO produced by 

the Rapid Thermal Process (RTP) - Ensyn Technologies from waste wood 

feedstock. 

� The standard GT2500 industrial turbine uses diesel oil (instead of kerosene, the 

common aviation fuel). The “silo” type combustion chamber, frequently adopted 

in industrial GTs, allowed for easy modifications. 


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�Emissions: 

well below applicable 

emissions limits at full load 



�� GT2500 turbine first tested with 

20 % diesel and 80 % PO, then 100 

% PO: all tests were successf ul. 

A short period of di esel oper ation before 

shut down was s ufficient to av oid 

deposition of black PO tars on the nozzle, 

the liner and the collector: nevertheless, 

some as h deposits occ urred i n some hot 

gas c omponents. 


Innovative Ablative Pyrolysis + DE Plant (Pytec) 

Complete 

PYTEC 

Pyrolyz er 


Total View of PYTEC 

Pilot Plant in 

Cuxhaven 

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PDFs avaliable at: www.thermalnet.co.uk 




Small scale biomass cogeneration - R&D needs 

� Biofuel production in small 

scale decentralised 

systems 

� New crops 

� Technology 

� Solid/liquid biomass 

combustion for high 

reliability/low emissions 

� Advanced thermochem. 

conversion technologies 

� Cost reduction through 

learning, and not only by 

scale production 

� Engineering, 

industrialisation 


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Conclusions 



� Small scale biomass power/heat generation = Opportunity 

� It represents an important issue for farmers, entrepreneurs and research 

centers, expecially after CAP reform 

� Short bioenergy chains 

� The most interesting ones for farmers 

� Bioenergy technologies 

� Commercially available for heat generation 

� Lack of reliable technologies for power. Very few reliable examples exist. 

Guarantee of performances as well as cost reduction is also a major issue. 

� R&D needed 

� Learning 

� Industrialisation/Engineering 

� Survey on 

� Existing needs 

� Ongoing education 

� Available at 

Bioenergy education - ThermalNet 

� www.crear.unifi/survey 

� Contributions 

are welcome ! 



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Thanks for your attention ! 

dav id.chiaramonti@unifi.it 

CREAR, University of Florence 

c/o Department of Energetics “S.Stecco” 

Via S.Marta 3, I-50139 Florence 

tel +39 055 4796436 

fax + 39055 4796342 



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Small scale cogeneration with biomass and biofuels - Bioenergy World

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