[Gasification] Market for gasifiers?

Thomas Koch tk at tke.dk
Sun Dec 15 13:22:20 CST 2013


Dear Gasification neards and geeks.

I have followed the last weeks discussions about the BIONEAR gasifier with great interest. 

One of the most interesting comments came from Frederik below here. 


For heat sold to customers in a district heating system in Finland, one

can typically take a price of about 70-80 €/MWh. For electric power

delivered to the grid, one gets the Nordpool FI price minus a margin. This

price varies, but it usually is within the range of 30-50 €/MWh. At the

moment it is about 35 €. This means that it mostly is clearly more

interesting to produce heat than power.


These market conditions does not at all favour small - below - 50 MW gasifiers.

With the valuable product from a gasifier - electricity - we compete against a NOORDPOOL price and some political mercy. 

With the cheap product - heat - we have a much better market. 

In this case a wood chip boiler is a much better choice than a gasifier if you look at the economy. 


If we (all the nerds!!) need to put more interest in identifying profitable markets for our technology. 

Thomas Koch 



 

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: Gasification [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] På vegne af Fredrik Ek
Sendt: 13. december 2013 06:32
Til: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
Cc: Gasification at bioenergylists.org
Emne: Re: [Gasification] HKG BIONEAR http://www.youtube.com /watch?v=ZKbYDF9Hp0o&feature=player_embedded


Hi Tom and list,



The Bionear gasifier is very interesting, but it is difficult to get a

grip on it. The man in the video is the inventor himself, Timo Heimonen.  I

have met him several times and also seen several of his systems in

operation during the last few years.

 

The gasifier in the video is located in Lestijärvi, Finland where it

primarily serves a district heating system. The turbine has earlier served

as a diesel powered emergency power station at bank of Finland and has been

modified for use on producer gas.

 

On the same site in Lestijärvi where Turos teams unit now is operating,

another gasification plant was in operation for a few years. This previous

gasifier had earlier been located in Tervola in Finnish Lapland and then

modified for service in Lestijärvi. The operation in Tervola was

unsuccessful. In Lestijärvi the plant was in operation, but there were

problems with gas quality. The rapeseed oil press and the drying facility,

were already on the site when Turos Team came into picture. The gasifier in

the video is the first of Turos teams units that is running as a real

installation, not “at home” for them.



I visited the plant in Lestijärvi two days ago. At that time the turbine

was not in operation due to too little heat load at the time (+4 C). The

district heating system was in operation and run on producer gas. The unit

is over dimensioned for the site and a portion of the produced gas also was

flared. Based on the color of the flare, the gas seemed to be of real good

quality. Not entirely soot free, but with a flame looking like when clean

tar free wood gas burns in a flare. Previously I have had the opportunity

to see flares and also smell dripping condensate from another of Turos

teams smaller units. The concensate was like spring water. 



For heat sold to customers in a district heating system in Finland, one

can typically take a price of about 70-80 €/MWh. For electric power

delivered to the grid, one gets the Nordpool FI price minus a margin. This

price varies, but it usually is within the range of 30-50 €/MWh. At the

moment it is about 35 €. This means that it mostly is clearly more

interesting to produce heat than power.



In the entire building in Lestijärvi, there was no smell of tar or smoke,

and the process seemed to run very smoothly. Time by time one could hear

small amounts of wood chips being fed to the gasifier. As is mentioned in

the video, there is no access to the interiors of the gasifier except the

two 2” plugs on the side. In the gas piping there is a small trap for

flyash, but it this is not really designed for removing much anything.



The gasifier was fed with wood chips with a humidity of about 30 % and

according to the inventor additional water was added at a rate of 10 l/h.

The statements of how much fuel was measured to be consumed per produced

MWh were not believable, 200 litres of wood chips/MWh. This is about one

fourth to one fifth of the amount that should be needed. Mr. Heimonen was

very aware of this himself too. I have been dealing with gasification for

many years and seen and heard unbelievable statements before too. When

something is too good for being true, it tends to show up that it also is

not. Water did not burn in Reisijärvi either despite earlier statements

made by another company… This unit in Lestijärvi is the most impossible

unit I have seen so far, but it seems to work. I can not believe the

efficiency statements and the presented values, but I can see that the unit

produces a clean gas and that the process seems to run very smoothly.



Measurements made by VTT (Technical research centre of Finland) on one of

the earlier units also showed impossible values. The construction of the

gasifier is a well kept secret. No patents or other documents on this are

available.



I keep my thumbs for Turos team and Mr. Heimonen! Gasification suffers

from too many failures, success stories are needed! The laws of nature are

hard to break, but also if the values are not true, a well functioning

system is worth a lot.



Fredrik Ek



fredrik.ek at xylogas.fi

+358407547182







On Wed, 11 Dec 2013 17:06:45 -0800, "Tom Miles" <tmiles at trmiles.com>

wrote:

> I liked that as well. Do we have any idea what “gasification” scheme

they

> are using? They say they have a gasifier and that they are making high

> hydrogen but they carefully avoided showing any useful pictures of the

> reactor. We see a lot of gauges and pipe fittings in these videos. 

> 

>  

> 

> Tom

> 

>  

> 

> From: Gasification

[mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org]

> On

> Behalf Of Thomas Koch

> Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2013 4:25 PM

> To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification;

> Gasification at bioenergylists.org

> Subject: Re: [Gasification] HKG BIONEAR

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKbYDF9Hp0o&feature=player_embedded

> 

>  

> 

> I love the last 10 seconds of the video

> 

>  

> 

> This plant is not designed to be repaired – it is designed to run

> smoothly.

> 

>  

> 

> Best regards

> 

>  

> 

> Thomas Koch

> 

>  

> 

>  

> 

>  

> 

>  

> 

>  

> 

> Fra: Gasification 
> [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org]

>
> vegne af kari käräjäoja

> Sendt: 11. december 2013 21:00

> Til: Gasification at bioenergylists.org

> Emne: [Gasification] HKG BIONEAR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKbYDF9Hp0o

> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKbYDF9Hp0o&feature=player_embedded>

> &feature=player_embedded

> 

>  

> 

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKbYDF9Hp0o

> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKbYDF9Hp0o&feature=player_embedded>

> &feature=player_embedded

> 

> 

> 

> VISITED TODAY THIS 4,2 MW ENERGY  station.

> 

> VERY IMPRESSIVE!

> 

> Made in Finland. PROUDLY1 SEE WHY...



-- 

Fredrik Ek

fredrik.ek at xylogas.fi

+358407547182

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