Potential of Co-firing of Woody Biomass in Coal Fired Power Plant

Abstract

Taking the distributing woody biomass supply into account, this paper assesses the potential of a co-firing of woody biomass in utility's coal power plant from the both energy-saving and economical view points. Sawmill wastes, trimming wastes from fruit farms and streets, and thinning residues from forests in Aichi Prefecture are taken into account. Even though transportation energy is required, almost all of woody biomass can be more efficiently used in co-firing with coal than in a small-scale fuel cell system with gasification as a distributed utilization. When the capital cost of fuel cell system with 25% of total efficiency, including preprocess, gasification and power generation, is higher than 170× 103yen/kW, almost all of thinning residues can be more economically used in co-firing. The cost of woody biomass used in co-firing is also compared with the transaction cost of renewable power in the current RPS scheme. The result suggests the co-firing of woody biomass in coal fired power plant can be feasible measure for effective utilization of woody biomass.