[Gasification] Cost and Performance of Small Scale Gasifiers

Thu Sep 18 08:55:53 CDT 2014

Hi Tanja

Thank you for this clarifiying comments.

I am sure that some of the datas in the databases are closer to reality that the figures for small scale biomass CHP plants.

On the other hand I am also sure that many people was fully aware of the realities in Stirling many years before it collapsed.

I had at least 5 serious job applications from technical staff from Stirling in the period from 2009 to 2012 and all knew. But the management did not at all listen !!!

Let us get some real data on the table from the palnts Harrie mentioned as potentially successfully.

How many hours of operation does a heard in an Ankur gasifier last? What is the charloss? How much maintenance?
I have visited at least 10 Ankur gasifiers. I have only seen  one in operation. It was on an eco tourist lodge in Sri Lanka. They had to change the heard every 3 weeks.

On the same trip I visited a 1 MW TERI gasifier on a teafactory – it had operated for 3 hours before before it exploded.  It looked to like they had made very simple and stupid and dangerous mistakes. Mistakes you could  MAYBE  excuse if 2 years studet makes them om their first experimental gasifier and you really want to teach them think by litteraly exploding the knowledge in to their heads.

Fra: Gasification [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] På vegne af Tanja Groth
Sendt: 18. september 2014 15:17
Til: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
Emne: Re: [Gasification] Cost and Performance of Small Scale Gasifiers

Hi Thomas,

As a native Dane living abroad, allow me to respond.

I worked for SDK for about 3.5 years, so although I am no engineer (please be gentle with me!) I am an economist with at least a working knowledge of how the Stirling engine/gasification/combined heat and power systems function.

Based on other projects I have worked on (before and after SDK), the numbers on the PV system and onshore wind from the Danish energy agency are not that far off, although naturally they are generalized and therefore do not take into account site specifics like availability of qualified support staff to service the products.

I have followed all the articles on Stirling on ing.dk, and read most of your commentary about our company.

We had 3 plants in Denmark, 2 in Germany, 1 in Italy, 2 in the UK and two engines in Japan.

3 of these were 4-engine plants. All of them were either combined heat and power or combined cooling, heat and power; I believe general practice when calculating LCOE’s is to take the value of heating and cooling (or biochar) into account.

All of them were first-of-a-kind commercial plants, each with a different configuration to test what would work best.

Cheers from London,
Tanja

From: Gasification [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Koch
Sent: 18 September 2014 13:31
To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
Subject: Re: [Gasification] Cost and Performance of Small Scale Gasifiers

Hi Tanja

As a native dane i would like to qualify your data a bit.

Concerning Stirling – look here – run it through Google translate – it is no where near exaggerated!!
http://ing.dk/artikel/stirling-dk-om-vaekstfonden-solgte-et-ufaerdigt-produkt-158574

Concerning operation hours – Stirling had 12000 hours in total with 6 plants assuming average 30 kw = 360000 kWh produced – there was a total investment of approx. 200 mio DKK ~ 25 mio € = 70 € pr KWh

Concerning your databases from DEA (ens) – they are political values and their connection to realities are hard to find.

Best regards

Thomas Koch

Fra: Gasification [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] På vegne af Tanja Groth
Sendt: 18. september 2014 13:32
Til: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
Emne: Re: [Gasification] Cost and Performance of Small Scale Gasifiers

Hi all,

Back when Stirling.DK was still running, I did the following comparison of one of our gasification CHP systems against a selection of other RE and natural gas technologies, as seen below;

[cid:image001.png at 01CFD357.7BC669D0]

These were based on 2012 technical data (for our 200kW gasifier with a 35 kWe Stirling engine, we managed 60% availability a gross electricity efficiency of 15%, before we were forced to throw in the towel). The case was based on Denmark, with applicable subsidies for all the RE technologies, but no taxes on the natural gas (so an indirect subsidy for them as well).

Most of the data used is freely available;

Techno-economic data per plant here: http://www.ens.dk/en/info/facts-figures/scenarios-analyses-models/technology-data

Fuel costs here: http://www.ens.dk/en/info/facts-figures/scenarios-analyses-models/socio-economic-method-analyses

Cheers,
Tanja Groth

tgroth at londoneconomics.co.uk<mailto:tgroth at londoneconomics.co.uk>

From: Gasification [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Koch
Sent: 17 September 2014 22:21
To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
Subject: Re: [Gasification] Cost and Performance of Small Scale Gasifiers

Dear Tom

TK energi delivered a 50 KW biomass gasifier to a holiday hotel. It operated approx. 14000 hours in 5 years. The total cost of the electricity produced was in the order of 1,2-1,5 dollars pr. KWh which was approx. 20-30 times higher than the market price.

20 years ago a Martezo gasifier was inatalled in western Denmark. The real figures are not all that easy to get but the rumors told that the electrity price was in the order of 10 dollars pr. KWh. One of the reasons for the very high is that the gasifier only operated for less than 1000 hours before it was scrapped.

At conference concerning small scale biomass gasification a young economist presented a study about how much investment support was needed for the Vølund 2 MWel updraft gasifier (that as far as I am aware is the best working small scale gasifier in the world!) . The study concluded that the gasifier needed 146 % of CAPEX in investment support??  Yes the project had to start with money in the bank to cover the losses.

Best regards

Thomas Koch
tk at tke.dk<mailto:tk at tke.dk>
phone + 45 22611047

Fra: Gasification [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] På vegne af Tom Miles
Sendt: 17. september 2014 22:58
Til: 'Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification'
Emne: [Gasification] Cost and Performance of Small Scale Gasifiers

Has anyone done a recent analysis of the cost and performance of small scale (<100 kWe, <200 kWe) gasifiers? We have seen several gasifiers on the market in the last several years but it is not clear how long they actually operate during the year (hours/year), how much heat or power (kWh/yr) they produce, what their average load factor is (40% of nameplate?), or what it actually costs or own and operate them.

Do we have any data for Borealis/Spanner Re2, Superior Gasification, All Power Labs, Ankur Scientific, Victory Gasworks, CarboConsult, Biosynergi, Community Power Corporation, Thompson Spaven, Planet Green, BETEL (India), 3i Energy Systems, Husk Power, Arbor Electrogen, Volter?

What about the next scale of  >200kWe<2000kWe? Cogebio, Xylowatt, Biogen, Advanced Gasification Technologies,  Evergreen Energy, Guascor, Milena, Proton Power, PRMEnergy, Primenergy, Zeropoint Cleantech. Mothermik, Dall Energy, Babcock Volund, Biomass Engineering, BETEL (India), Diversified Renewable Technology, Synkraft,Xylogas, CleanSTGas, Gussing Renewable Energy,Weiss, Agnion, MEVA, Xylopower, Pyrofoce

How many of these systems can document 2,000, 4,000, or 8,000 hours total or per year? What is a typical capacity factor for these systems. Are any of them run in commercial conditions?

Thanks

Tom

T R Miles Technical Consultants Inc.
tmiles at trmiles.com<mailto:tmiles at trmiles.com>
www.trmiles.com<http://www.trmiles.com>
www.gasifiers.bioenergylists.org<http://www.gasifiers.bioenergylists.org>

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