TECHNICAL AND ECONOMICAL TECHNOLOGY COMPARISON FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION FROM BIOMASS

摘要

Biomass is a reliable, dispatchable, and abundant fuel source for renewable electricity production.rnSeveral technologies have been developed and reached commercial maturity for small and medium scale thermalrnpower facilitiessuch as: grate firing combustion, fluidized bed combustion. Recently several commercial biomassrngasification plants have been commissioned. Biomass gasification can be combined to a steam cycle or to abiomassrnintegrated gasification combined cycle (BIGCC). Each of these technologies have advantages and drawbacks, and thernbest solution may vary depending on the plant size, biomass source and site-related features, e.g. low-temperaturernheating demand. In spite of the large biomass resources, thermal power from biomass has not taken off in South-rnAmerica. Therefore, the objective of this work is to compare, under technical and economical points of view,rndifferent technologies for electricity production from biomass in small/medium scale plants. The locationis in thernsoutheast region of Brazil. Mass and energy balances for each technology were calculated considering Eucalyptusrnwood chips as the main fuel. As expected, BIGCC was the most efficient but also the most expensive technology. Forrnsmall scale applications, biomass combustion is still the most attractive solution under the economical point of view.