Biomass combustion installations

A number of biomass combustion installations >20 MWth with little or no fossil fuel consumption were captured by the directive provisions. These installations receive very few allowances - or no allowances at all - as they only use oil for start-up (if at all). Nevertheless, these installations are covered by the EU ETS Directive and therefore have to carry out reporting etc. To relieve these installations from part of the administration costs, they were exempted from the administration fee to the DEA. 

Buggenum (Netherlands) 1994 253 Pre-combustion (installed in 2011) [9,10] Coal and biomass First IGCC commercial plant. Shell entrained-flow gasifier, Siemens V94.2 gas turbine and overall plant efficiency of 43% without CCS... 

The use of biomass in fossil fuel based power plants is of increasing interest, since it is considered as a CO2 neutral fuel, having zero human impact on the eaibon release to the atmosphere. Simultaneously, eontinuous efBdent selective catalytic reduction of NO with ammonia (NH3-SCR) remains a very important condition for the implementation of biomass fuel as a sustainable alternative for energy production. However, the NH3-SCR catalyst suffers from a number of deactivation phenomena when installed in boiler units based on biomass combustion, due to exposure to potassium containing fly ash[l]. The active V=0 and V-OH sites on the commercially used V205-W03/Ti02 based catalyst reacts with the potassium salts and form inactive alkali vanadates, which are unable to adsorb ammonia. 

In the U.S. about 8% of the energy is provided by biomass and almost 90% of this comes from the combustion of wood and wood residues. The use of biomass increased from an installed capacity of 200 megawatts in 1980 to over 7,700 megawatts in 1990. The search for cleaner fuels and landfill restraints are the main reasons for increased biomass utilization. The cost of waste disposal has soared and landfill sites are closing faster than new ones are opening up. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that between 1978 and 1988, 70% of the nation s landfills, about 14,000 sites closed. 

Borssele power plant also has the intention to co-combust 120 ktons per annum of biomass. Exanples of the types of biomass have already been listed in table 6 (sewage sludge and cocoa shells), but paper sludge, clean and untreated waste wood, waste pellets and charcoal may also be used. Most of the fiicls will be blended with the coal prior to pulverisation, although the possibility of installing separate pulverisers for the biomass fuels is subject of study. 

In the year 2000 the coal-fired power plants in the Netherlands are producing sustainable electricity by means of direct co-combustion of more than 900 kton of biomass and waste. Stand-alone installations (for example Cuyk, Amer) contribute... 

CEB is produced by reacting biomass fast pyrolysis oil with CaO. The desulphurization technology is applicable both for coal and for heavy fuel oil fired combustion chambers. The installed coaUflied power station capacity in Europe approximates... 

Alkali salts from combustion air at coastal installations or low-heating value fuels originating from gasification of biomass may be present in the fuel or combustion air. Salt deposition could be a problem at coastal or offshore installations. Chlorine deactivation was studied by Agarwal and co-workers, with respect to catalytic combustion of mixed chlorohydrocarbons over chrome-alumina catalysts. A decline in catalyst activity downstream of the catalyst bed was observed after 153 days-on-stream. 

Woody biomass, probably the first combustible fuel used by mankind, remains an opportunity fuel of choice for many installations. It is the dominant fuel of the finest products industry and, in that, contributes some 3.5 EJ (or 3.5x10 Btu) per year to the US economy. It contributes proportionately more to the Scandinavian economies as well. 

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