[Gasification] Commercial gasifiers in Europe
Fredrik Ek
fredrik.ek at xylogas.fi
Mon Dec 2 01:31:27 CST 2013
Hi Tom and list,
Spanner builds units in two sizes; 30 kWe and 45 kWe. I visited Spanner´s
stand at Agritechnika in Hannover last month and they told that they have
sold 240 units. I have seen about 20 of these units during the last years.
Most of them have been running. Thery use a downdraft gasifier with five
nozzles, no constriction and a half fixed half rotating conical "chistmas
tree" grate. The feed sluice for wood chips is massive and robust.
Filtration is dry with a pneumatically operated simple mechanical cleaning
system. The system for sensing fuel levels is robust and clever.
In Finland there is no Spanner unit, but in Latvia there are 23. In
Finland Volter Oy builds rather well functioning 30 kWe woodgas CHP units
with adjustable gasifiers and dry filtration.
Fredrik Ek
On Sun, 1 Dec 2013 14:55:37 -0800, "Tom Miles" <tmiles at trmiles.com> wrote:
> David,
>
> There are many commercial gasifiers in operation in Europe and North
> America. Most are in heating applications. Several in the US were built
in
> the 1980s and 1990s with biomass energy incentives. There are more than
a
> dozen updraft gasifiers burning fuels like wood waste or rice husks.
There
> are a few fluidized bed gasifiers. Many of the heaters could be called
> staged combustors since they are close coupled to boilers or air
heaters.
> These are generally small (<30 MWth) boilers used in industry and
> institutional heating. Most people don't recognize that incorporation of
> principles of gasification has improved combustion of dirty fuels like
> poultry litter to be burned without severe slagging and fouling.
>
> There are only a few commercial gasifiers that generate power in the US.
In
> most cases our electricity is too cheap and biomass fuels are too
expensive
> to generate power commercially via gasification. I know of a few
downdraft
> gasifiers that are used to generate power commercially. Two plants in
> California use the Ankur Scientific gasifier (500 kWe and 1 MWe).
> http://www.phoenixenergy.net/ Production of biochar as a co-product is
> important source of income for these plants. There are other plants at
this
> scale that prefer to stay "under the radar." Caterpillar engines are
used
> primarily in the plants that I know. I understand that Cat is very
> interested in the producer gas applications. Jenbacher, which has more
than
> 100 MWe of gensets fired by gasifiers, has a 2 MWe genset at University
of
> British Columbia. That installation is based on fuel savings for heat
and
> carbon sequestration (BC has a carbon tax on natural gas), not on
> electricity. Extra money was spent on the educations functions of the
> facility. Cummins has supplied small engines (100 kWe) to demonstration
> projects.
>
> We haven't seen many commercial small scale systems. As Tom Reed
mentions
> Community Power Corporation built about 40 gasifiers, many of which have
> been used by research organizations but some are operated commercially.
I
> don't know how many are still in use.
> http://www.gocpc.com/
>
> Harrie might be able to provide better numbers for Europe. You can find
> lists of gasifiers and suppliers in his book. I don't know the
> circumstances
> of the installations in Europe to be able to determine which are
commercial
> and which are for research and demonstration. There are reportedly more
> than
> 150 small scale (80 kWe/100 kWth) Spanner gasifiers in operation on
farms
> in
> Germany. I have read site visit reports for several of these. They are
sold
> primarily as a means of generating heat and secondarily for power
> generation.
>
> Tom
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gasification
[mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org]
> On
> Behalf Of David Coote
> Sent: Sunday, December 01, 2013 1:13 PM
> To: gasification at lists.bioenergylists.org
> Subject: [Gasification] Commercial gasifiers in Europe
>
> Hi Tom,
>
> Would you say there are any commercial gasifiers in operation in Europe
> or North America?
>
> Thanks
>
> David
>
> On 2/12/2013 6:00 AM, gasification-request at lists.bioenergylists.org
wrote:
>> Message: 8
>> Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 16:53:55 -0800
>> From: "Tom Miles"<tmiles at trmiles.com>
>> To: "'Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification'"
>> <gasification at lists.bioenergylists.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Gasification] Fluidised bed reactor
>> Message-ID:<00cf01ceee2f$d0047630$700d6290$@trmiles.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>>
>> Thomas,
>>
>> Third parties or associated organizations are beginning to solve some
of
>> Ankur's problems, including the nozzle issue. Like them or not they
sell
>> a
>> lot of systems so people are finding ways to improve them.
>>
>> Europe continues to be one of the most progressive regions for gasifier
>> development. We look forward to seeing more commercial installations.
>>
>> Worldwide there are more than 450 organizations that are working on the
>> production of synthesis gas for liquid fuels or chemicals.
>>
>> As you well know it all takes time and money.
>>
>> Tom
>>
>
>
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--
Fredrik Ek
fredrik.ek at xylogas.fi
+358407547182
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