Advanced Biomass Gasification for High-Efficiency Power: Publishable Final Activity Report of BiGPower Project

The BiGPower project was related to the development of 2nd generation high-efficiency biomass-to-electricity technologies, which have the potential to meet the targets of cost effective electricity production from wide range of biomass and waste fuels in size ranges typical to locally available feedstock sources (below 100 MWe). This project was designed to create the fundamental and technical basis for successful future industrial developments and demonstration projects aiming to commercial breakthrough by 2010-2020. This overall aim was approached by carrying out in pre-competitive manner well-focused R&D activities on the key bottlenecks of advanced biomass gasification power systems. Three promising European gasification technologies in this target size range were selected to form the basis for the development: 1) air-blow novel fixed-bed gasifier for size range of 0.5-5 MWe, 2) steam gasification in a dual-fluidised-bed gasifier for 5-50 MWe and 3) air-blown pressurised fluidised-bed gasification technology for 5-100 MWe. In all biomass gasification processes, the product gas contains several types of gas contaminants, which have to be efficiently removed before utilising the gas in advanced power systems. The key technical solutions developed in the BiGPower project were: a) high-temperature catalytic removal of tars and ammonia by new catalytic methods, and b) development of innovative low cost gas filtration. Three most potential power production cycle alternatives were examined and developed: 1) gas engines, 2) molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFC) and 3) the simplified Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) process. The performance and techno-economic feasibility of these advanced gasification-to-power concepts were examined by carrying out case studies in different European Union.