Extending existing combined heat and power plants for synthetic natural gas production

Abstract

SUMMARY In this work, integration of a synthetic natural gas (SNG) production process with an existing biomass CHP steam power cycle is investigated. The paper assesses two different biomass feedstock drying technologies—steam drying and low‐temperature air drying—for the SNG process. Using pinch technology, different levels of thermal integration between the steam power cycle and the SNG process are evaluated. The base case cold gas efficiency for the SNG process is 69.4% based on the lower heating value of wet fuel. The isolated SNG‐related electricity production is increased by a factor of 2.5 for the steam dryer alternative, and tenfold for the low‐temperature air dryer when increasing the thermal integration. The cold gas efficiency is not affected by the changes. Based on an analysis of changes to turbine steam flow, the integration of SNG production with an existing steam power cycle is deemed technically feasible. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The influence of biomass supply chains and by-products on the greenhouse gas emissions from gasification-based bio-SNG production systems

“…The scaling was done by applying a scaling factor to the stream data from the Aspen simulations (see Supplementary data) and to power demands of different process steps. The scaling factor was the amount of as-received biomass for the current system (430 MW LHV ) over the amount of as-received biomass in the study by Heyne et al [31] (90.3 MW LHV ). Adjustments to the scaled stream data was done in order to get the different cases in this study, i.e.…”

“…Calculation of the product mix from the bio-SNG system in the different cases a. Scaling the results from the Aspen simulations conducted by Heyne et al [31] to achieve GCC (grand composite curve) for the bio-SNG system with process integrated drying and applying pinch technology to estimate the power production potential by using a HRSC (heat recovery steam cycle) and the potential for heat deliveries at different temperature levels. The scaling was done by applying a scaling factor to the stream data from the Aspen simulations (see Supplementary data) and to power demands of different process steps.…”

“…b. Using data from Aspen simulations that were conducted by Heyne et al [31] to identify the conversion efficiency from biomass to SNG and the CO 2 balance for the process.…”

“…removing the heat demand for biomass drying and adding the heat demand for flue gas CO 2 separation. In addition, data from Heyne et al [31] (overall process), Heyne et al [32] (CO 2 compression and storage) and Heyne and Harvey [33] (biomass drying) was used to estimate the power demands of the different process configurations. b.…”

Production of Synthetic Natural Gas from Refuse-Derived Fuel Gasification for Use in a Polygeneration District Heating and Cooling System

“…Polygeneration applied to DHC systems often involves diversification of fuel resources and products through the application of suitable technologies. A number of products can be produced in DHC systems: ethanol [3,6] and other biofuels [7][8][9][10][11], chemicals (i.e., ammonia and olefins) [7], fertilizers [11], biogas [10] and synthetic natural gas (SNG) [7,[12][13][14]. SNG emerges as a suitable product to be associated to a polygeneration DHC system.…”