Biomass combustion with ORC for decentralized bioenergy applications : a techno-economic approach

摘要

The use of biomass for decentralised energy production has undergone a significant development the last years. The fact that this fuel is CO2-free provides many advantages in European and world aims for sustainable energy sources. Biomass trigeneration is a relatively new concept, which has the potential to improve the bioenergy economics for areas with warm climate, for which traditional biomass cogeneration was unfeasible. This concept can be applied with various energy conversion technologies, among others the biomass combustion coupled with the Organic Rankine Cycle process. The fact that ORC is a proven technology for waste heat applications provides advantages for its coupling with combustion. This combination is examined in the present study, in terms of the financial yield of an ORC tri-generation project. The concept of ORC biomass trigeneration is applied for a case study in Greece and interesting results regarding the cost and the profitability of the project are presented.