Small scale biomass-based Combined Heat and Power (CHP) has the potential to contribute significantly to solving the challenges Europe faces while pursuing the goal to make its energy system smart, clean, flexible, secure, cost competitive and efficient. High efficiencies are achieved by combining heat and power generation, and even cooling can be integrated in such a scheme. Furthermore, CHP can play an important role in securing electricity supply by balancing a Renewable Energy Sources (RES) based grid (“dispatchable power”) to compensate for fluctuating wind and solar electricity. For small-scale biomass CHP systems, a standardized fuel, enabling optimization of the conversion units and thus creating a cost competitive value chain, is highly preferred. Moreover, to achieve high resource efficiencies at all times a highly flexible ratio between heat and power generation is desired. A smart, demand driven unit should be capable of dealing with the fluctuating energy demand and/or varying availability of wind/solar power. In such a case, it is advantageous if the CHP system is flexible enough to adjust its fuel load rapidly, and this is achievable particularly with liquid fuels. Unfortunately, most renewable biomass resources are solid materials with a low energy density, therefore a preceding liquefaction step seems attractive. The resulting liquid energy carrier is then used to fuel the CHP unit, and this is the concept under development in SmartCHP.
The overall objective of SmartCHP is the realization of a cost-effective and flexible energy system by using a liquid intermediate energy carrier in an efficient Compression-Ignition (‘diesel’) -engine based CHP system. More specifically, it concerns the development of a smart and flexible, small-scale CHP unit (100 – 1,000 kWe) fueled with fast pyrolysis bio-oil (FPBO) originating from different types of lignocellulosic biomasses and/or residues. Fast pyrolysis is a process to convert a variety of biomass resources into a uniform liquid fuel called FPBO, and the process is characterized by a high feedstock flexibility. Nowadays, FPBO is produced on a commercial scale in Europe (e.g. Finland, Sweden & the Netherlands). The SmartCHP system combines an FPBO fueled engine and flue gas boiler to produce electricity and heat at a high efficiency over the whole load range. A dedicated flue gas treatment guarantees low emissions. Furthermore, SmartCHP enables higher levels of renewables in the electricity system by providing a flexible, responsive, and intelligent solution.
