PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
In 2013, the EU emissions trading system (ETS) entered its third phase. Participants must purchase emission allowances and/or implement solutions to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Several industrial sectors have shown an interest in Xylowatt gasification reactors. Interested sectors include the packaging glass industry and the production of bricks and tiles. The glass and bricks sectors are major consumers of energy and have limited options to reduce their carbon footprint and their dependence on fossil fuels. In addition, the gasification unit size is adapted to the size of the plants in these sectors.
Biomass gasification technology offers:
Efficient conversion of biomass into energy: Up to around 3 Mwe (megawatt electrical), there is no industrial technology that converts biomass into electricity as efficiently as gasification. Even at hundreds of kilowatts, the power conversion efficiency reaches 30% and overall efficiency can exceed 75% in CHP applications; Conversion into energy of difficult biomass: In addition to wood, gasification can handle recycled wood, agricultural by-products and sludge from wastewater treatment plants, thus contributing to CO2 emission reductions and to waste management; Local scale: The technology is particularly adapted to local markets and use of local resources.
OBJECTIVES
The overall project objective of the LIFE OxyUp project is double:
to validate the industrial pilot development of new solutions to substitute fossil fuel in industries with high requirement combustion processes. These new solutions are based on the NOTAR gasification technology developed by Beneficiary "Xylowatt"; and to recycle bio-wastes which represent an important resource but are difficult to treat. To reach this goal, the project combines 3 complementary sub-objectives:
to upscale and validate a pre-industrial 1.8 MW air gasification unit; to optimise gas combustion conditions and maximise the fossil fuel substitution rate for industrial applications compatible with an integrated solution of electricity/heat/cold production through a co-generation engine. The project focuses on middle-sized energy consumers (600 to 1,500 kWh electricity; to validate that the gasification unit can operate various sources of biomass, with the focus on on-site recycling of difficult biomass (e.g., wastewater plant sludge and recycled solid biomass).
RESULTS
Expect results:
12.6 GWh energy produced per gasifier per year, with 1 085 tons of oil equivalent (Toe) or 2 495 tons of CO2 avoided; and fossil fuel substitution from 50% to 70%. Further carbon reductions will be achieved because the extraction and transportation of fossil fuel will no longer be needed: the gasifiers will use on-site biomass, meaning no transportation, though this aspect is difficult to quantify.
