Periodic Reporting for period 2 - BLAZE (Biomass Low cost Advanced Zero Emission small-to-medium scale integrated gasifier-fuel cell combined heat and power plant)
Période du rapport: 2020-09-01 au 2023-05-31
The world is facing a massive energy, social and environmental challenge, that is particularly acute for Europe. Bioenergy production has to play a major role in the decarbonisation but new technologies have to be found in order to integrate biomass (especially residual/waste) and RES electricity to foster the biomass and RES sector in the RHC, CHP, biofuels and transport sectors. Therefore, BLAZE (Biomass Low cost, Advanced and Zero Emission) CHP has the overall objective to develop:
1) DBFBG (Dual Bubbling Fluidised Bed Gasifier) more compact and efficient respect to indirectly heated double circulating fluidised bed gasifiers and fixed bed gasifiers;
2) HTC (Hot Gas Conditioning) to have a more efficient and less cost and emission system and to allow optimal solid oxide fuel cell integration;
3) SOFC technologies to produce with higher efficiency and lower emission electricity and heat;
4) Integration of DBFBG, HTC and SOFC in order to convert wider fuel spectrum with higher efficiencies (50% versus 20%), low investment (<4 k€/kWe) and operation (≈0.05 €/kWh) costs and with almost zero emissions; increasing competitiveness of European industry, energy system reliability and flexibility, biomass plants social acceptance.
1) DBFBG (Dual Bubbling Fluidised Bed Gasifier) more compact and efficient respect to indirectly heated double circulating fluidised bed gasifiers and fixed bed gasifiers;
2) HTC (Hot Gas Conditioning) to have a more efficient and less cost and emission system and to allow optimal solid oxide fuel cell integration;
3) SOFC technologies to produce with higher efficiency and lower emission electricity and heat;
4) Integration of DBFBG, HTC and SOFC in order to convert wider fuel spectrum with higher efficiencies (50% versus 20%), low investment (<4 k€/kWe) and operation (≈0.05 €/kWh) costs and with almost zero emissions; increasing competitiveness of European industry, energy system reliability and flexibility, biomass plants social acceptance.
Modelling, design, manufacturing, tests, technoeconomic/environmental, dissemination, communication, exploitation activities by reactor, gas conditioning, SOFC and EPC European companies and research centres has been carried out as foreseen, with delays due to COVID (e.g. closure of offices and labs and delays in delivery and repairs) and technical issues (e.g. BLAZE scheme changed, more than foreseen components and layouts analyses, tests and developments). In particular it has been:
1 Identified, fully characterised (also ash behaviour) 10 samples and 5 mixtures representative of the most available European biomass residues with low cost. Agricultural: corn cobs, straw, rice husk, olive pruning. Forestry: Arundo donax, wood chips. Industry: olive pomace, almond shell, sawmill, sawdust, black liquor. Waste: MSW, Digestate, Subcoal. Only corn cobs and black liquor disregarded (for low ash melting) and subcoal, MSW and digestate (for ashes and contaminants) classified as difficult. Gasified the most relevant obtaining in average without gas conditioning: gas yield 1.2 Nm3dry/kgbiom,dry, LHV 8 MJ/Nm3dry, Residual Char 17 g/kgbiom,dry, CGE 75%, CC 90%, tar 20 g/Nm3dry, H2S=HCl 300 mg/Nm3dry (i.e. 300 ppm). Obtained complete tar conversion with commercial Ni catalysts (even with 100 ppm H2S but at 850 °C), Zinc oxide, Nahcolite and Kaolin reduced H2S, HCl and KCl to the SOFC limits see D2.1-2.4 and datasets 1-5
2 Manufactured and tested SOFC 30 button cells and 4 short stacks for more than 30,000 hours. H2S limits confirmed at 1 ppm when having HCl at 100 ppm. Light tar tolerated, heavy limit to 15 ppm. Increased knowledge about SOFC fed by biosyngas see D3.1-3.4 and dataset 6-8
3 Simulated 38,028 plant configurations finding that electrical and cogeneration efficiencies can be up to 49% and 90%, HEN can be reduced to 6 m2, AoG has to be send to the combustor, etc. and developed a new component (syngas compressor) see D4.1-4.4 and dataset 9-13
4 Developed a 100 kWth new gasifier (DBFB), a reactor with filter candles with catalyst, 2 tar reformer reactors, new H2S and HCl sorbents reactors, 25 kWe SOFC stack, complete integration. Gasifier tested for 2 years see D5.1-5.4 D6.1-6.2 and dataset 14-18
5 Calculated impacts mainly due to materials and energy inputs, equipment and lifetime are marginal (gasifier auxiliary fuel via AoG decrease 76% overall impact of 190 kg CO2-Eq/kWhe in LCA vs actual EU 2021 of 238 not LCA and 101 of green H2 in LCA). Upscaling BLAZE to 0.5-5 MWe and considering SOFC at 6 k€/kWe and 10 years warranty 0.1 €/kWhe and 0.04 €/kWhth are obtained with PBT of 3-6 years. Standards, regulations, control systems are central in particular allowing and specifying the biogenic waste use. See D7.1-7.5 D8.1-D8.8 and dataset 19-20
6 Done 24 publications and 20 datasets with thousands views and downloads, 46 dissemination and communications activities, 6 webinars, 1 MSP (Multi Stakeholder Platform) realized with 183 subscribers and 600 recording visualizations.
1 Identified, fully characterised (also ash behaviour) 10 samples and 5 mixtures representative of the most available European biomass residues with low cost. Agricultural: corn cobs, straw, rice husk, olive pruning. Forestry: Arundo donax, wood chips. Industry: olive pomace, almond shell, sawmill, sawdust, black liquor. Waste: MSW, Digestate, Subcoal. Only corn cobs and black liquor disregarded (for low ash melting) and subcoal, MSW and digestate (for ashes and contaminants) classified as difficult. Gasified the most relevant obtaining in average without gas conditioning: gas yield 1.2 Nm3dry/kgbiom,dry, LHV 8 MJ/Nm3dry, Residual Char 17 g/kgbiom,dry, CGE 75%, CC 90%, tar 20 g/Nm3dry, H2S=HCl 300 mg/Nm3dry (i.e. 300 ppm). Obtained complete tar conversion with commercial Ni catalysts (even with 100 ppm H2S but at 850 °C), Zinc oxide, Nahcolite and Kaolin reduced H2S, HCl and KCl to the SOFC limits see D2.1-2.4 and datasets 1-5
2 Manufactured and tested SOFC 30 button cells and 4 short stacks for more than 30,000 hours. H2S limits confirmed at 1 ppm when having HCl at 100 ppm. Light tar tolerated, heavy limit to 15 ppm. Increased knowledge about SOFC fed by biosyngas see D3.1-3.4 and dataset 6-8
3 Simulated 38,028 plant configurations finding that electrical and cogeneration efficiencies can be up to 49% and 90%, HEN can be reduced to 6 m2, AoG has to be send to the combustor, etc. and developed a new component (syngas compressor) see D4.1-4.4 and dataset 9-13
4 Developed a 100 kWth new gasifier (DBFB), a reactor with filter candles with catalyst, 2 tar reformer reactors, new H2S and HCl sorbents reactors, 25 kWe SOFC stack, complete integration. Gasifier tested for 2 years see D5.1-5.4 D6.1-6.2 and dataset 14-18
5 Calculated impacts mainly due to materials and energy inputs, equipment and lifetime are marginal (gasifier auxiliary fuel via AoG decrease 76% overall impact of 190 kg CO2-Eq/kWhe in LCA vs actual EU 2021 of 238 not LCA and 101 of green H2 in LCA). Upscaling BLAZE to 0.5-5 MWe and considering SOFC at 6 k€/kWe and 10 years warranty 0.1 €/kWhe and 0.04 €/kWhth are obtained with PBT of 3-6 years. Standards, regulations, control systems are central in particular allowing and specifying the biogenic waste use. See D7.1-7.5 D8.1-D8.8 and dataset 19-20
6 Done 24 publications and 20 datasets with thousands views and downloads, 46 dissemination and communications activities, 6 webinars, 1 MSP (Multi Stakeholder Platform) realized with 183 subscribers and 600 recording visualizations.
At present, installed electricity generation capacity by CHP in the EU-27 is about 120 GWe which generates approximately 11% of EU electricity demand. Germany, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands have the largest capacity installed. Renewables, mainly biomass and in particular low-cost biomass or biomass waste, are becoming increasingly important having attained 20% of the market. As an economically viable means to increase further grid penetration of solar and wind, power generation from biomass is expected to continue to increase significantly, on the small, medium and large scales. The total EU27 energy demand for Heating and Cooling (H/C) equals 51% of the total final energy demand with ambitious policy objectives which include, for instance, that all new buildings must be Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) from 31st December 2020.
The difficulty in converting different biomass feedstocks together with the high CAPEX/OPEX and high emission of the actual biomass CHP systems limit the development of the large biomass CHP potential. The electrical efficiencies of small-to-medium biomass combustion Rankine CHP cycles are rather low (typically 8 to 14% related to the biomass input power). An alternative option to biomass combustion CHP technologies are biomass gasification CHP technologies that exhibit higher electric efficiencies (~ 25%) but limited overall efficiencies (65-75%) due to intermediate gas cooling steps. Other disadvantages are the high fuel quality requirements, high efforts for gas cleaning as well as rather complex process schemes. To overcome these problems and to develop a highly efficient and fuel-flexible small-to-medium scale biomass CHP technology, a new approach has been chosen within this project. To really exploit the biomass energy potential, reliable, high efficiency and low environmental impacts small and medium scale power plants must be developed, for better compatibility with the low energy density and perishability of this fuel. BLAZE is made by technologies that can be easy scalable (fluidised bed and fuel cells on the contrary of fixed bed and engines/turbines), thus BLAZE can cover all the small-to-medium scale size. The power/heat ratio is similar to the large scale Combine Cycle CHP; but BLAZE can operate, with higher electrical efficiency, in power modulation, and, with the slip side of the syngas directly to the burner, can change the power/heat ratio. BLAZE has brought ground breaking technology for low cost and zero emission renewable energy production via novel concepts and approaches, realising new products and allowing new services and businesses (zero emission waste use, stability for the grid, etc.) with respect to the products and services already available on the market now. The integration of SOFC and BFB hot gas conditioning gasification has reduced the risks for the next development stages of these technologies including e.g. biofuels and power to fuel allowing bioenergy technologies industry to grow and be competitive and to play a key role in reaching the 2030 and 2050 Energy and Climate targets.
The difficulty in converting different biomass feedstocks together with the high CAPEX/OPEX and high emission of the actual biomass CHP systems limit the development of the large biomass CHP potential. The electrical efficiencies of small-to-medium biomass combustion Rankine CHP cycles are rather low (typically 8 to 14% related to the biomass input power). An alternative option to biomass combustion CHP technologies are biomass gasification CHP technologies that exhibit higher electric efficiencies (~ 25%) but limited overall efficiencies (65-75%) due to intermediate gas cooling steps. Other disadvantages are the high fuel quality requirements, high efforts for gas cleaning as well as rather complex process schemes. To overcome these problems and to develop a highly efficient and fuel-flexible small-to-medium scale biomass CHP technology, a new approach has been chosen within this project. To really exploit the biomass energy potential, reliable, high efficiency and low environmental impacts small and medium scale power plants must be developed, for better compatibility with the low energy density and perishability of this fuel. BLAZE is made by technologies that can be easy scalable (fluidised bed and fuel cells on the contrary of fixed bed and engines/turbines), thus BLAZE can cover all the small-to-medium scale size. The power/heat ratio is similar to the large scale Combine Cycle CHP; but BLAZE can operate, with higher electrical efficiency, in power modulation, and, with the slip side of the syngas directly to the burner, can change the power/heat ratio. BLAZE has brought ground breaking technology for low cost and zero emission renewable energy production via novel concepts and approaches, realising new products and allowing new services and businesses (zero emission waste use, stability for the grid, etc.) with respect to the products and services already available on the market now. The integration of SOFC and BFB hot gas conditioning gasification has reduced the risks for the next development stages of these technologies including e.g. biofuels and power to fuel allowing bioenergy technologies industry to grow and be competitive and to play a key role in reaching the 2030 and 2050 Energy and Climate targets.