[Gasification] Power Pallet

[Tom Miles]

Andrew,

 

I saw a Power Pallet today on display at an Ag Show in Portland, Oregon. It was loaded with hazelnut shells to suit the audience. 

 

We installed a 10 kWe and a 20 kWe Power Pallet at a sawmill in Alaska in October. We unpacked and assembled the 20 kWe unit in about three hours. (We bought the 10 kWe unit about two years ago and had it tested at Colorado State University. All Power Labs modified it to improve performance after testing and before shipping it to Alaska.)

 

Fuel geometry is definitely an essential part of the design of any gasifier. We chipped air dried slabs and edgings from a portable sawmill in a tree service chipper. You need to screen out the oversize and the fine. Fines in a downdraft gasifier convert to tars or block air passages in the reduction zone. This gasifier takes chips that are less than 1 ½ inch. Fines less than ½ inch are screened off and removed.  

 

The heat recovery arrangement in the assembly allows wet fuel to be gasified. Our wood was about 25% MC on a wet basis which is quite wet for a downdraft gasifier. It is not recommended but when we took the gas piping apart the next morning to inspect it there was no evidence of tars anywhere, just dry carbon. Ordinarily you would want to gasify chips that have been dried to 15% MC or less. 

 

A batch of wood will last for 3-4 hours in the existing hopper. Improvements are being made including better hoppers and fuel handling equipment. The current design suits our purpose at the mill in Alaska. We expect that the owners will upgrade to improved designs in the future.

 

Select a gasifier that will suit your needs. This one won’t run by itself without operator intervention for more than about 4 hours at a time. Modifications are being made for intermittent feeding to extent that to semi-continuous runs.

 

We were pleased to see that All Power Labs has made many improvements to the Power Pallet over the  last two years and development continues.  We would certainly consider them in the future. 

 

Tom 

   

 

From: Gasification [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Andrew James-Buehler
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2013 2:59 PM
To: Gasification at bioenergylists.org
Subject: [Gasification] Power Pallet

 

Hullo all,

I am looking for an off grid power supply, and came across this power pallet from the US. 

 <http://gekgasifier.com/gasification-store/gasifier-genset-skids/> http://gekgasifier.com/gasification-store/gasifier-genset-skids/

 

Does anyone have any hands on experience with these? Are they as good as their web site claims? I have easy access to abundant hardwood sawdust and shavings from a local timber mill, and would like to set this, or a similar unit up on a continuous feed arrangement. Any suggestions there anyone?

 

Many thanks

Andrew 

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