Your choices:
1 Biomass (solid); 2 Process heat; 3 Fuel: gaseous
| What is your resource? | What do you want to deliver? | What is the service the customer wants? |
| Biomass (digestible sludge) | District cooling | Comfortable indoor climate |
| Biomass (fermentable sludge) | District heating | Electricity |
| 1 Biomass (solid) | Electricity | Process cooling (< 0 °C) |
| Geothermal | 3 Fuel: Gaseous | Process heat/steam (50 - 150 °C) |
| Sunshine | Fuel: Liquid | 2 Process heat (150 - 1000 °C) |
| Water | Fuel: Solid | 2 Process heat (> 1000 °C) |
| Wind | Local cooling (ind. house) | Transport |
| Residual oils/fats etc | Local heating (ind. house) |
If the process was originally fired with LPG or natural gas so that there is already a process control system adapted for a gaseous fuel, then an alternative may be to erect a fixed-bed gasifier in connection to the process.
The gasifier should be placed as close to the main user as possible, since it becomes crucial for the total efficiency of the system that the gas is distributed hot, i.e. as close as possible to its exit temperature from the gasifier.
It must be remembered that to keep costs low in this type of fuel replacements, only a small part of the solid fuel ashes will actually remain in the gasifier, so the furnace atmosphere will be changed and reflect the composition of the solid biomass. This may – or may not – have an influence on the product quality.
A system solution like this would be preferred for example in a glass work.