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MARKET¦
nspiring nvestment
A 2009 NREL assessment of biomass combustion and gasification technologies may not have spurred rapid commercial development, but it has encouraged state investment in demonstration projects. BY LISA GIBSON
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n the path of pitches from technology manufacturers and project developers looking to drum up business in certain states, members of the Clean Energy States Alliance realized they were unaware of the commercial status of biomass combustion and gasification technologies. A request to the U.S. DOE’s Technical Assistance Program resulted in a study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory titled “Market Assessment of Biomass Gasification and Combustion Technology for Small- and Medium-Scale Applications.” Free of charge to CESA, the 2009 report focused on conversion technologies with capacities of less than 5 megawatts (MW) or 50 million Btu per hour. Primary applications considered were thermal, combined-heat-and-power (CHP), and district heating. The report analyzed biomass availability, strengths and weaknesses of both technologies, system economics, and included an assessment of their commercial statuses, as well as inventories of suppliers of both technologies. “[CESA] wasn’t quite familiar with the status of the technologies and the commercial viability, so they wanted some type of overview,” says study co-author Scott Haase. Not surprisingly, the study found that direct combustion systems for heat, power or CHP are available commercially from a number of manufacturers. Gasification systems, however, showed different and more diverse results. Close-coupled gasification systems, where the syngas is burned directly for space heat, drying or to produce steam,
JULY 2011 | BIOMASS POWER & THERMAL 37