Environmental Impact on the Life Cycle for Turbine Based Biomass CHP Plants

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pietro Bartocci ◽  
Gianni Bidini ◽  
Paolo Laranci ◽  
Mauro Zampilli ◽  
Michele D'Amico ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Combustion Engine ◽  
Organic Rankine Cycle ◽  
Rankine Cycle ◽  
Biomass Combustion ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Environmental Benefit ◽  
Treatment Unit ◽  
Whole Life Cycle

Biomass CHP plants represent a viable option to produce distributed energy in a sustainable way when the overall environmental benefit is appraised on the whole life cycle. CHP plants for bioenergy conversion may consist of a gasification (IGC – Integrated Gasification Cycle) or pyrolysis (IPRP – Integrated Pyrolysis Regenerated Plant) pre-treatment unit, producing a syngas that feeds an internal combustion engine or a gas turbine. The external combustion mode is also an option, where exhaust gases from biomass combustion provide heat to either a traditional steam cycle, an ORC (Organic Rankine Cycle) or an EFGT (Externally Fired Gas Turbine). This paper focuses specifically on turbines based technologies and provides a LCA comparison of 4 main technologies suitable for the small scale, namely: EFMGT, ORC, IGC and IPRP. The comparison is carried out considering 3 different biomasses, namely a Short Rotation Forestry, an agricultural residue and an agro industrial residue at 2 different scales: micro scale (100 kw) and small scale (1 MW), being higher scales barely sustainable on the life cycle. From data derived from the Literature or experimental campaign (tests at the IPRP and gasification facilities at the University Perugia), LCA analysis were carried out and the different scenarios were compared based on two impact categories: global warming and human health. Input and output of the derived LCI are referred to the functional unit of 1 kWh electric for upstream, core and downstream processes. Results show the contribution of main processes and are discussed comparing scale, technology and feedstock.

Bottoming organic Rankine cycle for a small scale gas turbine: A comparison of different solutions

2013 ◽  
Vol 106 ◽  
pp. 355-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Clemente ◽  
Diego Micheli ◽  
Mauro Reini ◽  
Rodolfo Taccani
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Organic Rankine Cycle ◽  
Rankine Cycle ◽  
Small Scale

Externally Fired Micro-Gas Turbine and Organic Rankine Cycle Bottoming Cycle: Optimal Biomass/Natural Gas Combined Heat and Power Generation Configuration for Residential Energy Demand

2016 ◽  
Vol 139 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio Mario Camporeale ◽  
Patrizia Domenica Ciliberti ◽  
Bernardo Fortunato ◽  
Marco Torresi ◽  
Antonio Marco Pantaleo
Keyword(s):  
Natural Gas ◽  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Organic Rankine Cycle ◽  
Rankine Cycle ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Residential Energy ◽  
Micro Gas Turbine ◽  
Residential Energy Demand ◽  
Heat Demand

Small-scale combined heat and power (CHP) plants present lower electric efficiency in comparison to large scale ones, and this is particularly true when biomass fuels are used. In most cases, the use of both heat and electricity to serve on-site energy demand is a key issue to achieve acceptable global energy efficiency and investment profitability. However, the heat demand follows a typical daily and seasonal pattern and is influenced by climatic conditions, in particular in the case of residential and tertiary end users. During low heat demand periods, a lot of heat produced by the CHP plant is discharged. In order to increase the electric conversion efficiency of small-scale micro-gas turbine for heat and power cogeneration, a bottoming organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system can be coupled to the cycle, however, this option reduces the temperature and the amount of cogenerated heat available to the thermal load. In this perspective, the paper presents the results of a thermo-economic analysis of small-scale CHP plants composed of a micro-gas turbine (MGT) and a bottoming ORC, serving a typical residential energy demand. For the topping cycle, three different configurations are examined: (1) a simple recuperative micro-gas turbine fueled by natural gas (NG); (2) a dual fuel externally fired gas turbine (EFGT) cycle, fueled by biomass and natural gas (50% share of energy input) (DF); and (3) an externally fired gas turbine (EFGT) with direct combustion of biomass (B). The bottoming ORC is a simple saturated cycle with regeneration and no superheating. The ORC cycle and the fluid selection are optimized on the basis of the available exhaust gas temperature at the turbine exit. The research assesses the influence of the thermal energy demand typology (residential demand with cold, mild, and hot climate conditions) and CHP plant operational strategies (baseload versus heat-driven versus electricity-driven operation mode) on the global energy efficiency and profitability of the following three configurations: (A) MGT with cogeneration; (B) MGT+ ORC without cogeneration; and (C) MGT+ORC with cogeneration. In all cases, a back-up boiler is assumed to match the heat demand of the load (fed by natural gas or biomass). The research explores the profitability of bottoming ORC in view of the following trade-offs: (i) lower energy conversion efficiency and higher investment cost of biomass input with respect to natural gas; (ii) higher efficiency but higher costs and reduced heat available for cogeneration with the bottoming ORC; and (iii) higher primary energy savings and revenues from feed-in tariff available for biomass electricity fed into the grid.

scholarly journals Exergy, Economic, and Life-Cycle Assessment of ORC System for Waste Heat Recovery in a Natural Gas Internal Combustion Engine

Resources ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillermo Valencia Ochoa ◽  
Javier Cárdenas Gutierrez ◽  
Jorge Duarte Forero
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Natural Gas ◽  
Waste Heat ◽  
Combustion Engine ◽  
Organic Rankine Cycle ◽  
Rankine Cycle ◽  
Working Fluid ◽  
Exergy Destruction ◽  
Tube Heat Exchanger ◽  
Exhaust Heat

In this article, an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) was integrated into a 2-MW natural gas engine to evaluate the possibility of generating electricity by recovering the engine’s exhaust heat. The operational and design variables with the greatest influence on the energy, economic, and environmental performance of the system were analyzed. Likewise, the components with greater exergy destruction were identified through the variety of different operating parameters. From the parametric results, it was found that the evaporation pressure has the greatest influence on the destruction of exergy. The highest fraction of exergy was obtained for the Shell and tube heat exchanger (ITC1) with 38% of the total exergy destruction of the system. It was also determined that the high value of the heat transfer area increases its acquisition costs and the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of the thermal system. Therefore, these systems must have a turbine technology with an efficiency not exceeding 90% because, from this value, the LCOE of the system surpasses the LCOE of a gas turbine. Lastly, a life cycle analysis (LCA) was developed on the system operating under the selected organic working fluids. It was found that the component with the greatest environmental impact was the turbine, which reached a maximum value of 3013.65 Pts when the material was aluminum. Acetone was used as the organic working fluid.

scholarly journals Energy, exergy, and environmental assessment of a small-scale solar organic Rankine cycle using different organic fluids

Heliyon ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. e07947
Author(s):  
Geanette Polanco Piñerez ◽  
Guillermo Valencia Ochoa ◽  
Jorge Duarte-Forero
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Assessment ◽  
Organic Rankine Cycle ◽  
Rankine Cycle ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Organic Fluids

scholarly journals Multi-objective optimization of ORC geothermal conversion system integrated with life cycle assessment

2018 ◽  
Vol 70 ◽  
pp. 01012
Author(s):  
Dominika Matuszewska ◽  
Marta Kuta ◽  
Jan Górski
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Organic Rankine Cycle ◽  
Rankine Cycle ◽  
Geothermal System ◽  
Geothermal Systems ◽  
Multi Objective Optimization ◽  
Geothermal Resources ◽  
Multi Objective ◽  
Conversion Technology

This paper details the development of a systematic methodology to integrated life cycle assessment (LCA) with thermo-economic models and to thereby identify the optimal exploitation schemes of geothermal resources. Overall geothermal systems consist of a superstructure of geothermal exploitable resources, a superstructure of conversion technology and multiple demand profiles for Swiss city. In this paper, an enhanced geothermal system has been chosen as exploitable resources. The energy conversion technology used in modelling is an organic Rankine cycle, which can be used to supply heat and electricity. In the Swiss case four demand profiles periods are considered: summer, interseason, winter and extreme winter, the city Nyon serving for the example case study. The multi-objective optimization system, that uses an evolutionary algorithm, is employed to determine the optimal scheme for some of the prepared models, with exergy efficiency and environmental impact as objectives.

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