Biomass

Biography

Biography: Elmar Steurer

Abstract

The combination of hydrothermal carbonization and gasification incorporates advantages when compared to the alternatives like combustion, fermentation, conventional carbonization and gasification of dry biomass. The described concept uses agricultural residues like rice husk and rice straw as a renewable energy resource. These rice residues typically exhibit low energy density which limits an economic transportation for electrical power generation. In addition to this, combustion does not make any sense due to the transportation restrictions and the high contents of ash and dust. To master this challenge, the process of Hydrothermal Carbonization (HTC) is applied to produce bio coal as a transportable value added product with high energy density and the same caloric value as lignite. The produced bio coal can be transported to gasification units in remote villages to generate electrical base load power for mini-grids. The advantage of HTC in the preparation of bio coal lies in the fact that, it is a clean gasification process with a very low level of ash and dust pollution. In addition to this, it is showed that this approach is economically profitable. In the case of the Philippines, the levelized cost of electricity is lower than using Diesel Gensets and it is comparable to the retail tariff of the national grid. Thus, this approach could be the key to a profitable generation of electricity as the HTC facility produces enough bio coal to achieve economic efficiency while supplying remote gasification units to produce electricity for mini-grids on a reliable and steady level.