Synergy Effects of Co-processing of Biomass with Coal and Non-toxic Wastes for Heat and Power Generation (COPOWER)

Objective

As part of the EU programme to encourage the use of renewable, biomass could play an important role. Experience has shown that the availability of biomass could be a serious obstacle for its extensive use for energy. There is a possibility of rendering the use of biomass more viable by blending it with non-toxic wastes, which are economically unattractive for recycling and are expensive to dispose of in landfills. It is, therefore, imperative that there is a satisfactory synergy between coal, biomass and wastes so that the impact of multi-fuel co-firing minimizes any negative aspect of any fuel when used separately. The proposed study aims at determining the limits of the optimised operation that could be beneficial in getting rid of waste and promoting biomass for environmentally acceptable energy generation. The important output of the proposed work could be that biomass and wastes are to be used in co-firing applications, thus enhancing the prospect for wide range of availability of the co-fuel. Larger power stations generally have to use more than one base fuel and one co-fuel because of regular changes in availability and price. This requires that the technical feasibility of co-firing various fuel blends have to be assured. It has still to be demonstrated that certain combinations of biomass and waste could have specific advantages either for the combustor performance, or for the flue gas cleaning or for ash behaviour. The integration of biomass with its whole supply chain into a multihued-based nationwide heat and energy supply system will in the present project be comprehensively investigated for three exemplary countries, namely Portugal and Italy, both EU member states, and Turkey, an EU candidate country. In the future, the management of the intermediate-size power stations will be forced to be involved more with the business of co-firing. Otherwise they will not be able to compete in offering low cost electricity with the large size power stations.

Fields of science

• natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistryalkali metals
• natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistryinorganic compounds
• engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsfossil energycoal
• engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwaste managementwaste treatment processes
• agricultural sciencesagricultural biotechnologybiomass

Programme(s)

• FP6-SUSTDEV - Sustainable Development, Global Change and Ecosystems: thematic priority 6 under the Focusing and Integrating Community Research programme 2002-2006.

Topic(s)

• SUSTDEV-1.2.5 - New and advanced concepts in renewable energy technologies - Biomass

Call for proposal

FP6-2002-ENERGY-1
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Coordinator

Participants (9)