Objective
The project concentrates on several main objectives. The first aim is to increase the energy output of biomass district heating plants significantly. This is achieved by improving the efficiency of combustion of the energy recovery from the flue gas condensation unit and by reducing the electricity consumption of the whole process with well-designed pumps and fans. An optimized pipe network design will reduce heat losses and will in addition decrease the investment costs. Moreover, a fuel drying system is intended. The second aim of this project is to increase the sustainability of such systems. To achieve this aim a NOx reduction by primary methods is foreseen. Furthermore, it is not only necessary to close the CO{2}-cycle, which is possible by a sustainable wood culture, but also to close the elementary cycles of nature by recycling the wood ash produced. A new combustion technology will enable the separation of ash fractions with a low amount of heavy metals and ash fractions enriched with heavy metals. In this way 90 to 95 per cent of the ash produced can be recycled in forests in an ecological manner.
The combustion plant will supply district heat to one of the coldest places of Austria, the town of Tamsweg. Both wood chips from local farmers and bark, sawdust and shavings from sawmills of the region will be used as fuels. The plant itself consists of two combustion units (moving grate incinerators) with boiler capacities of 5 and 3 MWth and a flue gas condensation unit. The network of pipes will be designed for a total capacity of 16 MWth.
The innovative technologies are:
- Biomass drying system: by drying the fuel with preheated air from the third stage of the condensation unit the energy output of the boiler increases due to the fuel's lower water content.
- NOx reduction: by using the technology of air staging, the gasification of wood and the combustion process will take place in separated zones. NOx formation will be avoided by the reducing atmosphere of the primary combustion zone, while the oxidizing atmosphere in the secondary combustion zone guarantees a complete combustion.
- Fractionated heavy metal separation: by means of a new combustion technology it is possible to precipitate 84-90 per cent of the total ash produced at high temperature. This ash is heavy metal poor and can be used as a fertilizing and liming material.
- Optimization of network of pipes: operating costs are reduced by calculating carefully the diameters of the pipes necessarily depending on the annual costs for pumping and heat loss and taking a new approach for the correct pressure loss circulation in the pipes into account.
- Process control and visualization: a computer aided process control system allows a continuous plant operation in a power range between 30 to 130 per cent of the nominal boiler capacity, ensures continuous plant operation and improves the efficiency of combustion. Furthermore, an on-line evaluation of important ecological and economic plant parameters is possible.
Comparing this combustion plant with other plants without flue gas condensation units, the average efficiency of the combustion will increase from about 83 per cent to approximately 103 per cent, if the heat produced in the flue gas condensation is recuperated. Moreover, the average electricity consumption of the heating plant can be reduced to 50 per cent by using frequency controlled fans and pumps, well-designed winding shafts of the sliding bar conveyors and a well working control system.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringcontrol systems
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuels
- agricultural sciencesagricultural biotechnologybiomass
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesforestry
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Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
DEM - Demonstration contractsCoordinator
5580 Tamsweg
Austria