Development and application of a decision support tool for biomass co-firing in existing coal-fired power plants

Biomass co-firing has the potential to be a low-cost source of renewable energy that can utilize the existing infrastructure of coal-fired power plants, while reducing the overall environmental impact. Though there are technical barriers to the development of co-firing operations, including the lowe...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Safferman, S.I (Author), Saffron, C.M (Author), Smith, J.S (Author)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier Ltd 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:View Fulltext in Publisher
LEADER 02886nam a2200421Ia 4500
001 10.1016-j.jclepro.2019.06.206
008 220511s2019 CNT 000 0 und d
020 |a 09596526 (ISSN) 
245 1 0 |a Development and application of a decision support tool for biomass co-firing in existing coal-fired power plants 
260 0 |b Elsevier Ltd  |c 2019 
856 |z View Fulltext in Publisher  |u https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.06.206 
520 3 |a Biomass co-firing has the potential to be a low-cost source of renewable energy that can utilize the existing infrastructure of coal-fired power plants, while reducing the overall environmental impact. Though there are technical barriers to the development of co-firing operations, including the lower calorific value and higher chlorine content of the biomass compared to coal, several systems have shown the ability to do so successfully. Applying the lessons learned from such systems to site-specific conditions in a systematic way could greatly benefit the industry. This study uses aggregated information regarding various combustion technologies, pre-treatment technologies, and available biomass feedstocks to generate a decision support tool for energy providers that will help identify economic, environmental, and social impacts of developing site-specific biomass co-firing projects at existing coal-fired power plants. The tool was verified using an existing case study and demonstrated for an existing power plant, which also served to provide general observations for similar situations. For the area studied, co-firing using 5% biomass substitution over a 20 year project life was found to be an economical option for renewable energy generation and reduced emissions. The expense of raw biomass had the largest impact on the life-cycle project cost. Torrefied pellets had the highest plant-gate cost, as compared to dried and pelleted biomass. However, the biomass pretreatment method was highly sensitive to the substitution amount and project life. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd 
650 0 4 |a Biomass 
650 0 4 |a Biomass feedstock 
650 0 4 |a Coal 
650 0 4 |a Coal combustion 
650 0 4 |a Coal fueled furnaces 
650 0 4 |a Co-feeding 
650 0 4 |a Co-feeding power plant 
650 0 4 |a Costs 
650 0 4 |a Decision support systems 
650 0 4 |a Economic analysis 
650 0 4 |a Environmental impact 
650 0 4 |a Environmental technology 
650 0 4 |a Feedstocks 
650 0 4 |a Fossil fuel power plants 
650 0 4 |a Life cycle 
650 0 4 |a Mining 
650 0 4 |a Pelletizing 
650 0 4 |a Renewable energies 
650 0 4 |a Renewable energy 
650 0 4 |a Techno-economic analysis 
650 0 4 |a Techno-Economic analysis 
650 0 4 |a Torrefaction 
700 1 |a Safferman, S.I.  |e author 
700 1 |a Saffron, C.M.  |e author 
700 1 |a Smith, J.S.  |e author 
773 |t Journal of Cleaner Production