Externally Fired Micro Gas Turbine

EFmGT-cycle
Fabiola Baina, Marianne Salomón, Catharina Erlich,Torsten H. Fransson Universidad Mayor de San Simon

Department of Energy Technology, Chair of Heat and Power Technology

Royal Institute of Technology
S - 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
Phone: +46-8-790 74 72 Fax: +46-8-20 41 61 email: fabiola@kth.se
SIDA-SAREC

and natural gas as

Introduction well as to consider
Nowadays, global warming caused by the increase of green solar energy as
house gases is one of the major problems for human beings. A heat source for the
solution to this problem appears to be a change in the way we turbine to
interact with our environment. Therefore, it is taking more and generate
more importance to make a balance between our daily electricity and heat
necessities and the conservation of nature simultaneously. of such a
Among one of the urgent needs, heat and power production is of temperature and
major concern due to its value for our activities and its effect on quality that can be
the environment. used for “poly-
generation”
Many systems and technologies for electricity generation fed with applications to
biomass instead of fossil fuels have been developed to reduce produce clean
emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. One of them water or for
is the externally fired gas turbine, which offers the possibility of cooling purposes.
burning “dirty” fuels such as biomass. Also, in order to improve
Figure 2 Micro turbine scheme
the efficiency of these kind of systems combined heat and power Figure 2 shows how a directly fired micro turbine works (flue
has been considered, so heat can be used as much as possible. gases in direct contact with the turbine). The difference with the
Furthermore, biomass as externally fired gas turbine is that it offers the possibility of
a source of energy has burning biomass directly without causing significant damage to
an especial interest the turbine. The main feature of this technology is that the
because it is not only a combustion takes place outside the cycle at atmospheric
renewable energy, but it pressure and heat is transferred to the fluid that will be expanded
is also a carbon dioxide in the turbine through a heat exchanger reducing problems of
neutral source. Figure 1 corrosion in the turbine. Figure 3 shows a scheme of the EFGT-
shows the cycle of cycle.
carbon dioxide using
biomass as fuel. These Expected Results
and other reasons make The results expected in this research will address the main
interesting and problems related to EFGT-cycles fed with biomass. The main
challenging the analysis limitations are linked with the heat exchanger as it is in contact
of producing heat and with flue gases.
power from biomass, so
both the utilization of Thus, tests are
Figure 1 Carbon dioxide cycle using focused on
the externally fired gas
biomass as fuel fouling in the
turbine and biomass to
produce heat and power is analyzed in this research. heat exchanger
due to biomass
combustion, a
The suggested study presents also the possibility of using this “dirty” fuel. Also,
technology in rural areas to provide heat, electricity and other suitable heat
services to places where the extension of grid is not economically exchangers for
possible and access is difficult. This is the case of remote areas EFGT-cycles are
in Bolivia, which is part of this study. Bolivia is situated in western analyzed as it is
South America and although it is the second largest natural gas required high
producer (after Venezuela) in Latin America and it has stress
unexploited hydropower, the problems already mentioned make Figure 3 Scheme of the externally fired
conditions. New
difficult to supply power to countryside areas. It would be thus a gas turbine
solutions to
large benefit, from the viewpoint of global climate change, if all overcome these limitations will be proposed in order to improve
the agricultural residues produced in Bolivia’s rural areas could be the efficiency. Finally, it is expected that two systems will be set
used for efficient decentralized power generation which could be up to produce electricity, one in UMSS, Bolivia and the other as
also combined with cooking facility, a heating/cooling part and part of an overall biomass EXPLORE polygeneration system at
possibly co-fired with natural gas to increase the power potential. KTH, Sweden.

Objective Project Partners

The project is focused on the analysis of the Externally Fired The study is financially supported by the Swedish International
micro Gas Turbine (EFmGT-cycle) fed with different fuels such as Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), Royal Institute of
biomass (available in countries like Bolivia), gasified biomass Technology (KTH-Sweden) and Universidad Mayor de San
Simon (UMSS-Bolivia) Updated 2009-07