THEME 2:
Carbon reduction and energy efficiency
Research priority 6 – Large Scale Power Generation
This research priority covers power generation and delivery. Large scale power generation includes existing technology and infrastructure used to provide electricity in the UK. Current facilities use predominantly fossil fuel based technologies, such as coal and gas. The integration of these plants with renewable energy sources, such as biomass is a key challenge to achieve a stable transition to a low carbon economy. There are a number of technical issues that must first be resolved, in particular fuel flexibility, meeting future energy demand and system reliability.
Biomass utilisation in large scale power generation will displace fossil fuels and hence employ short life-cycle carbon (such as plant biomass) to generate heat and power. Wales has a significant potential for the cultivation and refinement of biomass and waste based fuels, from producer through to end user. Biomass as an energy vector can potentially make use of developing technologies including gasification, pyrolysis and large scale combustion as well as influencing agricultural practices to provide optimum crop yields and assessment of true carbon footprints for biomass technology.
Cardiff University School of Engineering has a long history of the evaluation and primary research and development of renewable fuels in large scale power generation applications. This has included coal co-firing trials at major UK power stations, development of biomass gasification systems and studies of the combustion phenomena of biomass derived liquid and gaseous fuel substitution in gas turbines.
Case study 1 - Biomass co-firing at Aberthaw power station. This research project involved fuel characterisation followed by a 3 day continuous trial in a 500MW boiler. This trial involved the co-firing of coal with different grades of biomass fuel in order to optimise the co-firing combustion characteristics of renewable fuels in existing coal based boiler technologies.
Case study 2 - The application of biomass and waste derived fuel in large-scale advanced gasification systems. This project involved the development of biomass residue fuels to replace coal in an updraft gasification system. Key areas of research included measurement of the heat transfer properties of biomass pellets in order to model changes in physical properties as the fuel was gasified in the process.
Case study 3 – Investigation of the effects of production gas from gasification systems in gas turbine plants. This project will look at the flexibility of gas turbines to reliably combust a wide range of fuel gas mixtures, which have been prepared via a renewable gasification process. This is often referred to as integrated gasification combined cycle technology. Of particular interest is the influence of varying hydrogen content of the fuel and how this will effect parameters such as calorific value, flame speed and flashback potential.
Key Contact: Professor Phil Bowen, Cardiff School of Engineering, Cardiff University.
