A Review of Residential-Scale Natural Gas-Powered Micro-Combined Heat and Power Engine Systems

Author(s):  
Gokul Vishwanathan ◽  
Julian Sculley ◽  
David Tew ◽  
Ji-Cheng Zhao
Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 2083 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Faizan Tahir ◽  
Haoyong Chen ◽  
Muhammad Sufyan Javed ◽  
Irfan Jameel ◽  
Asad Khan ◽  
...  

Traditional energy supply infrastructures are on the brink of facing a major transformation due to energy security concerns, environment pollution, renewable energy intermittency and fossil fuel scarcity. A hybrid energy system constitutes the integration of different energy carriers like electricity, heat and fuel which play a vital role in addressing the above challenges. Various technological options like combined heat and power, heat pumps, electrolysers and energy storages ease out multiple carrier integration in an energy hub to increase system flexibility and efficiency. This work models the hybrid energy system of China for the year 2030 by using EnergyPLAN. Atmosphere decarbonization is achieved by replacing conventional coal and natural gas boilers with alternative individual heating sources like hydrogen operated micro combined heat and power natural gas micro combined heat and power and heat pumps. Moreover, rockbed storage as well as single and double penstock pumped hydro storages are added in the proposed system in order to cope with the stochastic nature of intermittent renewable energy such as wind and solar photovoltaic. The technical simulation strategy is employed to analyze the optimal combination of energy producing components by determining annual costs, fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. The results substantiate that a heat pump and double penstock pumped hydro storage addition to the individual heating and electricity network not only proves to be an economically viable option but also reduces fuel consumption and emissions.


Author(s):  
Homam Nikpey ◽  
Mohsen Assadi ◽  
Peter Breuhaus

Previously published studies have addressed modifications to the engines when operating with biogas, i.e. a low heating value (LHV) fuel. This study focuses on mapping out the possible biogas share in a fuel mixture of biogas and natural gas in micro combined heat and power (CHP) installations without any engine modifications. This contributes to a reduction in CO2 emissions from existing CHP installations and makes it possible to avoid a costly upgrade of biogas to the natural gas quality as well as engine modifications. Moreover, this approach allows the use of natural gas as a “fallback” solution in the case of eventual variations of the biogas composition and or shortage of biogas, providing improved availability. In this study, the performance of a commercial 100kW micro gas turbine (MGT) is experimentally evaluated when fed by varying mixtures of natural gas and biogas. The MGT is equipped with additional instrumentation, and a gas mixing station is used to supply the demanded fuel mixtures from zero biogas to maximum possible level by diluting natural gas with CO2. A typical biogas composition with 0.6 CH4 and 0.4 CO2 (in mole fraction) was used as reference, and corresponding biogas content in the supplied mixtures was computed. The performance changes due to increased biogas share were studied and compared with the purely natural gas fired engine. This paper presents the test rig setup used for the experimental activities and reports results, demonstrating the impact of burning a mixture of biogas and natural gas on the performance of the MGT. Comparing with when only natural gas was fired in the engine, the electrical efficiency was almost unchanged and no significant changes in operating parameters were observed. It was also shown that burning a mixture of natural gas and biogas contributes to a significant reduction in CO2 emissions from the plant.


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