Biomass based Energy Systems to Meet the

Growing Energy Demand with Reduced Global

Warming: Role of Energy and Exergy Analyses
*l
B.Y. Reddy , T.Srinivas2

*1

Faculty o/Engineering and applied Science

University o/Ontario Institute o/Technology (UOIT)

2000 Simcoe

Street North

Oshawa, ON, Canada, Ll H

7K4

Email: Bale.Reddy0Juoit.ca

2School 0/Mechanical and Building Sciences

Vellore Institute o/Technology University (VIT U)
Vel/ore, TN, India

632 014

Email: srinivastpalli@yahoo.co.in
Abstract- The demand for energy is growing worldwide and this

has to be met with various options in an environmentally friendly

manner. Biomass based energy systems are receiving a great deal

of attention to meet part of the growing energy demand with
reduced global warming. Cogeneration is also receiving a great
deal of attention worldwide to meet part of the energy demand
due to high overall energy utilization efficiency and reduced
pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions. In the present paper
the role of biomass energy systems and future scope for various
cogeneration systems are discussed. Given the growing energy
demand, biomass based energy systems and cogeneration systems
will receive a great deal of attention in the coming years to
generate power and process heat from various energy sources to
meet

part

of

the

global

energy

demand

with

high

energy

conversion efficiencies. Also the exergy analysis is receiving

attention to analyse
sources

of

various energy systems to identify the

irreversibilities

and

also

aids

to

improve

the

performance of the systems. The generalized methodology of

exergy evaluation has been reported for energy systems.

Keywords- I Biomass, Energy systems, Cogeneration,

Greenhouse gas emissions, Energy demand

I.

INTRODUCTION

The world energy demand increased from 283 quadrillion

Btu / year in 1980 to 472 Quadrillion Btu / year in 2006
(SDOE). As shown in Figure 1, the U.S. Energy Information
Administration (EIA) projects that the energy demand will
continue to increase for the period from 20 I 0 to 2030. The
majority of this increase is expected to occur in emerging
economies in Asia, including China and India (USDOE, 2009).
The demand for energy is growing worldwide due to
industrialization and economic development in many
countries on side and the growth in population on the other
side. This has to be met with in an environmentally friendly
manner. There is a growing interest to develop sustainable and
renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, biomass on one

978-1-4673-6150-7/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

side and on the other side to develop efficient technologies to

utilize coal, oil and gas. Cogeneration is also receiving a great
deal of attention worldwide to meet part of the energy demand
due to its overall high energy utilization efficiency and
reduced pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions. Given the
current global situation, there is no single energy source,
which can meet the requirement. In the present paper the role
of coal, oil, gas, biomass based power generation systems,
cogeneration and its possible contribution to power generation
are discussed. Given the growing energy demand, there is a
great role for sustainable energy systems, cogeneration
systems and renewable energy sources to contribute and meet
energy demand in an environmentally friendly manner. The
present paper contributes the research investigations that are
happening in the area of coal, biomass and natural gas based
advanced energy technologies.
II. COAL, NATURAL GAS, BIOMASS BASED ENERGY
SYSTEMS
The basic details and research advances in the areas of coal,
natural gas and biomass based energy systems are discussed
below. The oil embargo in 1970's resulted in more focus on
solid fuels and this resulted in the development of many
advanced combustion technologies for industrial use and for
power generation. The fluidized bed combustion technologies
and its next generation technologies such as circulating
fluidized bed combustion, pressurized fluidized bed
combustion are being employed for power generation.
Recently there is a great deal of interest on co-firing of coal
and biomass in fluidized bed combustion systems to reduce
the CO2 emissions partly responsible for global warming.
Coal gasification based combined cycle power generation
systems are also developed to utilize coal with reduced
greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon dioxide capture and its
sequestration is gaining lot of importance in recent years.

18

Combined cycle power generation systems:

Combined cycle power generation systems are receIVIng
great attention from the last ten to fifteen years due to their
high energy conversion efficiency which results in higher
power output and reduced pollutants and greenhouse gas
emissions. Natural gas based combined cycle power
generation systems (Chiesa and Consonni, 2000) received a
quick attention and are being employed for power generation
due to the clean burning of natural gas. The arrangement of
gas turbine and steam turbine cycles through a heat recovery
steam generator results in higher energy conversion efficiency.
This is due to the recovery of waste heat from gas turbine
exhaust gases in the heat recovery steam generator. Currently
there is much natural gas and oil based combined cycle power
generation systems operating world wide with high energy
conversion efficiencies compared to only gas turbine and
steam turbine power plants. Research investigations are
conducted on natural gas based combined cycle power
generation systems to improve their performance. The exergy
analysis is also receiving a great deal of attention in recent
years to identify the irreversibilities in power system
components which in turn will aid for further improvement.
Reddy and Mohamed (2007) reported the exergy analysis for
natural gas fired combined cycle power generation systems
with various operating conditions. With advances in gas
turbine blade materials and higher gas inlet temperatures to
the gas turbines, the combined cycles will operate with higher
energy conversion efficiencies resulting reduced greenhouse
gas emissions and better economy.
Gasification and Combined Cycle Power Generation:
There is also a growing interest to use coal, biomass and
other solid fuels in a combined cycle mode for power
generation due to its high energy conversion efficiency
compared only gas turbine cycle or steam turbine cycle. In an
integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) the coal is
gasified in a gasifier and the fuel gas is cleaned and is burnt in
a gas turbine combustion chamber and the unit is operated in a
combined cycle mode (Chester et al. 1988). There are power
plants operating on IGCC technology worldwide. A good
mount of research is conducted on IGCC systems to further
improve their performance. There is also growing interest to
develop IGCC systems with carbon capture and also with
hydrogen production (Wang et aI., 2006, Stiegel and Ramezan,
2006, Damen et aI., 2006).
Integrated Energy Systems:
There is also growing interest on hydrogen due to its
application for many industrial applications and also for fuel
cells and fuel cell based vehicles. The solid oxided fuel cells
(SOFC) and molten carbonate fuel cells (MOFC) are receiving
a great deal of attention for power generation or in an
integrated energy system. The research directions in this side
are to develop gasification based combined cycle power
generation systems to produce power and hydrogen. Some of
the future systems will include coal, biomass and other solid
fuel gasification based combined cycle power generation

systems with gas turbines, steam turbines, fuel cells, hydrogen

production with carbon dioxide capture probably leading to
zero emission solid fuel based power plants. The research
investigations in this area include that of Wang et aI., (2006).
III. COGENERATION SYSTEMS
Cogeneration is the simultaneous production of electric
power and process heat from the same fuel source in a system
and is often also referred to as combined heat and power
(CHP).
CHP systems can achieve very high overall
conversions efficiencies. Cogeneration systems can result in a
significant reduction in emissions including CO2 (Poulikkas,
2005).
Steam turbines, gas turbines, combined cycle
configurations, fuel cells, micro turbines and internal
combustion engines are employed in many cogeneration
applications. India has great potential to produce electric
power from various cogeneration systems particularly from
sugar mills, chemical industries, refineries etc.
Combined Cycle Cogeneration Systems:
Gas turbine and steam turbine based combined cycle power
generation units are developed for high efficiency electricity
production. These systems combine a gas turbine system with
a steam turbine through a HRSG.
Law and Reddy (2007)
investigated a natural gas fired combined cycle cogeneration
system as shown in Figure 2. These units are becoming
popular due to higher fuel utilization, higher conversion
efficiencies and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. The gas
turbine combustion conditions, gas cycle and steam cycle
conditions will influence the overall performance and
efficiency of a combined cycle cogeneration system. The
selection of combustor conditions and gas turbine and steam
turbine conditions depend on the availability of materials to
withstand the high pressures and temperatures. The second
law of thermodynamics and the exergy analysis will provide
details on the role of combustor operating conditions, gas
cycle and steam cycle operating conditions on the
performance of the plant based on quality point of view. The
exergy analysis as reported by Law and Reddy (2007) for a
natural gas fired combined cycle cogeneration system is
presented in Figure 5. The exergy analysis presents the details
on the performance of individual components from second
law thermodynamics from quality point of view. The results
demonstrate the role of exergy analysis in identifying the
performance of components. The analysis also provides the
methods for further improvement. The advanced materials for
combustion chambers and gas and turbine blades play a
dominant role in the overall performance of a power
generation system
IV. COGENERATION SCOPE
Combined heat and power (CHP) systems can be installed
in industries or buildings that require a substantial heating or
cooling load consistently throughout the year. For cooling
applications, heat generated from a cogeneration unit can be
used in absorption chillers.

19

Cogeneration has scope in many industries from pulp and

paper, sugar mills, refineries and chemical industries. Two
industries that have a large share in worldwide cogeneration
and show significant potential for increased capacity are the
pulp and paper industry and the sugar cane industry. These
industries are discussed in the following sections. Other
important industries using cogeneration include oil refining,
oil extraction, chemical industries, and several manufacturing
industries.
Pulp and Paper Industry
The pulp and paper industry is one of the main contributors
to CHP capacity in Canada, USA, and several European/Asian
countries. The Kraft pulping process, the dominant pulping
process in North America, is especially well suited for
cogeneration because it has a large demand for heat and power
thought the entire year and produces a significant amount of
by-product that can be used as a low cost fuel.
The byproducts of the pulping process, hog fuel and black
liquor, is often used to satisfy the process heating
requirements and a significant portion of the electricity
demand of the mills. The hog fuel consists mainly of bark
stripped from pulping logs that enter the mill while black
liquor is a mixture of spent pulping chemicals and the
components of the wood that are not suitable for paper
production. These fuels are considered to be of low or even
negative cost as it would be more costly to dispose of them
then to use them for producing energy. The chemicals
contained in the black liquor are considered to be especially
valuable since they can be recycled and reused in the pulping
process. Generating energy from the biomass portion of the
black liquor has been considered secondary to the recovery of
the pulping chemicals.
Recent research has investigated the use of black liquor
gasification technologies to improve the performance and
increase the capacity of pulp and paper cogeneration systems.
The use of this technology could potentially make pulp and
paper manufacturers net exporters of electricity rather than
importers. One extensive study by Larson et al. (2003)
concluded that mills could use black liquor gasification and
combined cycle (BLGCC) cogeneration systems to double the
electricity generation of steam turbine based systems. At the
same time, the BLGCC cogeneration system would require
additional fuel input beyond the self generated by-products in
order to ensure that the steam load is met. This is because a
larger fraction of the fuel input is converted to electricity in
this advanced system than in the steam turbine cogeneration
systems.
Studies have shown that most mills have a
significant amount of forest residues available to them from
nearby forestry operations (sawmills, etc.) that could be used
to satisfy this additional fuel input (Consonni et aI., 1998). If
mills can double their electricity output by replacing their
steam turbine based systems with BLGCC cogeneration
systems and use forest residues as the incremental fuel input,
not only will the level of cogeneration in North America and
Europe increases, but so will the production of electricity from
renewable biomass sources.
Since biomass fuels are

considered to have near zero net emissions of CO2, this would

result in a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Sugar Cane Industry
The sugar cane industry is an important part of several of
the emerging economies. The main sugar cane producers are
Brazil, India, and China but Thailand, Pakistan, Mexico,
Colombia, Australia, Cuba, USA, and the Philippines are also
large producers.
Similar to the pulp and paper industry, the sugar cane
industry naturally well suited for cogeneration because of its
large heat and power requirements in addition to its
availability of low cost by-product that can be used as an
energy source. In this industry, the main by-product, called
bagasse, is the fibrous component of the cane stalk that
remains after the juices are removed (WADE, 2004).
The study by the World Alliance for Decentralized Energy
(WADE) identified the potential of bagasse cogeneration if
more efficient systems operating at higher temperature and
pressures are installed. The potential contribution of bagasse
cogeneration to the electricity demand in many of the main
sugarcane producing countries is significant. Most notably,
bagasse cogeneration could supply over 25% of Cuba's
electricity demand and in Brazil, the contribution could be as
high as 1 1.5%. For the top sugar cane producing countries
excluding China, Australia, and USA, the potential is 7.45%
of the electricity demand. WADE believes that no more than
15% of this potential is realized at present.
v. COGENERATION STATUS

The use of cogeneration varies widely from region to

region depending on various conditions such as the industries
present, cost of electricity, and price of fuels. In some
countries such as Denmark, cogeneration supplies more than
40% of the country's electricity demand while in other
countries, cogeneration has little contribution to the energy
supply. The following discussion outlines the status of
cogeneration in the different regions of the world.
North America
In North America, the majority of the cogeneration capacity
is located in the oil refining and extraction industries, the pulp
and paper industry, and chemical manufacturing industries.
Canada
The Canadian Industrial End Use Data and Analysis Center
(CIEEDAC) at the Simon Fraser University analyzed the
cogeneration facilities in Canada. According to their database,
there are presently approximately 200 cogeneration systems
installed in Canada with a total capacity of 6.8 GWe
(Strickland and Nyboer, 2006). These systems produce
around 7% of the national electricity generation.
There were two periods of substantial growth in Canadian
cogeneration capacity, as shown in Figure 3. The first period
was in the 1970 when energy prices quickly rose in Canada.
The second period started in 1990 and continued until the last
couple of years.

20

United States of America

Cogeneration use in the United States has been growing
steadily in recent years. As shown in Figure 4, the installed
CRP capacity in the USA has grown from 10 GW in 1980 to
approximately 82 GW in 2005. Presently, this corresponds to
nearly 8% of their national electricity generating capacity.
European Union
The European Union is a world leader in promoting
cogeneration. It is the objective of the Union to increase the
contribution of cogeneration in electricity generation from 9%
in 1994 to 18% by 20 I 0 (Lazaro et aI., 2006). This is a part of
their effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 8% below
1990 levels during the first commitment period of the Kyoto
Protocol (2008 to 20 12) and to reduce the energy intensity by
one point per year until 20 10 (Lazaro et aI., 2006). A 2004
directive given by the European Commission was one step
towards achieving these goals. This directive obliges the
member states to allow fair, objective procedures concerning
access to the grid. It also requires each state to analyze and
report on the potential for high efficiency cogeneration.
Asia
A large amount of the growth in energy demand over the
next 20 years is expected to be located in the emerging
economies of Asia. From 1990 - 2002, the average annual
percentage change in energy consumption increased by 4.6 in
the emerging economies in Asia (USDOE, 2005).
The
projection by the lEA indicates that these growing economies
will continue to increase consumption by an average of 3.5%
per year over the next 20 years (USDOE, 2005). As a result
of this expected development, it will be important for China,
India, and other growing Asian countries to meet the energy
demand efficiently.
South America
The conditions in South America are especially suitable for
cogeneration use due to the wide availability of natural gas
reserves and agricultural industries such as sugar cane. Brazil
is the largest producer of sugarcane in the world, there is a
large potential for increased CHP generation in this industry
(WADE, 2004).
VI. ROLE OF EXERGY ANALYSIS ON ENERGY
SYSTEMS
The exergy analysis is receiving a great attention from the
last decade due to the ability to analyze a power generation
system on a component basis and also as a whole system.
Unlike the first law of thermodynamics which talks about
energy balance for components or for the whole system, the
second law provides insight into the performance of the
energy system components and the whole energy system with
quality point of view by analyzing the irreversibilities in the
components, losses in the components and the performance of
them with operating conditions. In the literature research
investigation are conducted to improve the performance of the

power generation system through exergy analysis leading to

better design of system components and the whole power
generation unit. Bejan (2002) reported some details on exergy
analysis. Rosen and Dincer (2004) discussed the role of
exergy analysis for thermal energy storage systems. The
exergy analysis for a natural gas fired combined cycle power
generation system as reported by Law and Reddy (2007) is
presented in Fig. 5. This presents the irreversibilities, exergy
losses and destructions in various components. With
developments of advanced blade materials, combustion
chamber and with increased gas turbine inlet temperatures, the
exergy analysis is becoming very important to improve the
performance and design of energy system components and
systems. Any improvement in the energy systems based on
second law will result in greenhouse gas emissions leading to
reduced global warming.
There are certain limitations to energy analysis particularly
in optimization study. In case of fuel combustion, the heat loss
can be minimized by insulating the entire combustor. But the
exergetic loss in combustor occupies a major part in
contribution in the plant. The improvement of the combustion
with different ideas can be solved by exergy approach in a
more appropriate way. The exergy analysis is very much in
keen observation of energy exchange processes. This
approach is suitable for individual process improvement and
to make it environmental friendly. This also judges the
thermodynamic feasibility of the proposed new ideas for
modification and innovations. It helps in decision making by
giving optimum solutions which are beyond the energy level.
For example, steam injection in combustion chamber
decreases the combustion exergetic losses and simultaneously
it also increases the exhaust loss. Exergy simulation gives the
minimum total exergetic losses with the steam injection as in
Fig.6.
The total exergy of system is divided in to two parts i.e.
chemical exergy and physical exergy. The chemical exergy of
a fuel is maximum obtainable work by allowing the fuel to
react with air from environment to produce environmental
components of carbon dioxide, water vapor and nitrogen. In
exergy balance of compressors and turbines, the chemical
exergy cancels and so leaves the physical exergy which is the
main contributor. However, chemical contribution plays main
role in fuel gas combustor, reactor, gasifier etc. The physical
exergy is the maximum obtainable work determined above the
reference state.
For dry organic substances contained in biomass fuels
consisting of C, H, 0 and N with a mass ratio of oxygen to
carbon less than 0.667, the following expression is obtained in
terms of mass ratios (Kotas, 1995).

rPdry

h
0
n
1.0437 + 0.1882- + 0.0610- + 0.0404c

( 1)
0 and N

where c, h, 0 and n are the mass fractions of C, H,

respectively
For solid fuels with the mass ratio 2.67 > ole> 0.667,

21

1.0438 +0. 1882--0.2509 1+0.7256- +0.0383-

dry

The role of exergy in energy systems has been given with

some applications. The exergy evaluation steps from fuel
input to exergy efficiency are reported.

\-0.3035c

For moist fuel, standard chemical exergy,

cO

(kJ/kg)

[LHJI1 (kJ kg-I)

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

(2)

El

+ 2442

w} dry

+ 9417

(3)
Where w mass fraction of moisture in the fuel
l
hjgO 2442 kJ kg steam enthalpy of evaporation of
at standard temperature, To

Nomenclature

H20

The chemical and physical exergy components are

detennined at each state by using the following equations.
Chemical exergy,

ech

Lk nk< +RToLknk In.[P.xk]

where Xk is the mole fraction of

Physical exergy,

eph

h
kl component

( 5)

[""" J
i,,",

100

[; fuel

( 7)

Figure 7 depicts the effects of typical biomass gasifier

characteristics on exergy efficiency of biomass gasifier for
different biomass fuels. The exergy efficiency is high at lower
relative air fuel ratio (RAFR) and steam fuel ratio (SFR) but it
is low at low pressures. The exergy value of biomass fuel is
different for different fuels. Therefore, there is a variation in
exergy efficiency of gasifiers based on nature of fuel. The
exergy efficiency of gasifier with rice husk is more than the
other fuels. Manure exhibits a minimum exergy efficiency
compared with the remaining fuels.
VII.

P
R
s

[;

Exergy, e ech + eph

( 6)
The exergy efficiency is defmed as the ratio of
maximum obtainable work output from the plant to
availability of fuel.
Exergy efficiency of plant, 772

total exergy, kJ/kg mol

specific enthalpy, kJ/kg mol
specific irreversibility, kJ/kg mol
pressure, bar
universal gas constant, kJ/kg mol K
specific entropy, kJ/kg mol K
temperature, K
standard chemical exergy, kJ/kg mol
efficiency
exergy ratio

'7

(4)

h -L.kToSk

Dr. B.V. Reddy and Dr. T. Srinivas acknowledge the

financial support from NSERC, Canada for the present work.

CONCLUSIONS

Research investigations are conducted to further improve

the gas turbine, steam turbine and combined cycle
cogeneration systems. With improvements in combustion
technologies, the utilization efficiencies with cogeneration
systems will further increase with time.
Efforts should be made to utilize biomass in a big way for
meeting the energy demand.
There is also need for the governments to encourage
cogeneration in private and government sectors so that the
part of the growing energy demand can be met in an
environment friendly way.
There is a need to develop advanced gasification based
technologies so that they can be used in pulp and paper, sugar
cane industries to generate more electric power at higher
efficiencies

Suffix
ch
f
ph
o

chemical
formation
physical
reference point
second law

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23