Optimum conditions for a natural gas combined cycle power generation system based on available oxygen when using biomass as supplementary fuel

Nirmal V. Gnanapragasam, Bale V. Reddy and Marc A. Rosen

Energy, 2009, vol. 34, issue 6, 816-826

Abstract: Due to the higher oxygen content and lower heating value, the amount of biomass required in a combined cycle, where it is used as supplementary fuel, to meet a given energy demand is such that the biomass consumes almost all of the oxygen remaining from gas turbine combustion process under certain conditions. This situation requires additional air for biomass combustion thus reducing the cycle efficiency and the net work output rate while increasing CO2 emissions. Three conditions at which the oxygen is completely consumed are identified based on alterations in net fuel utilization. The first condition is linked to fuel utilization, which is observed to be significantly affected by variations in temperatures at three locations in the combined cycle (air temperature entering the gas turbine combustion chamber, gas turbine inlet temperature and HRSG inlet temperatures). The second condition relates to the characteristics of the feedstock (oxygen content of the biomass and heating value of natural gas). The heat loss due to combustion of natural gas and biomass is the third condition that affects oxygen availability. The current work assesses these conditions in order to identify the proper condition at which no additional air is required for supplementary firing of biomass.

Keywords: Natural gas combined cycle; Biomass supplementary firing; Thermal operating conditions; Available oxygen; Heat loss; Biomass feedstock; CO2 emissions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544209000917
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:34:y:2009:i:6:p:816-826

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2009.03.006

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().