Potential and Market Prospect of Biomass Energy

Against the backdrop of continuous growth in power consumption, coal-fired power enterprises, which dominate power generation, are urgently seeking alternative resources to coal to address the needs of energy transition and sustainable development. Meanwhile, enhanced environmental awareness has imposed greater operational pressure on coal-fired power enterprises. To alleviate this tension, biomass co-firing technology has emerged and gradually become an important part of the daily operations of coal-fired power enterprises, providing a new approach for enterprises to reduce costs and achieve green development.

As a product of photosynthesis, biomass covers various organisms such as animals, plants, and microorganisms. It can be classified into three categories by form: solid, liquid, and gaseous; according to sources, it is divided into forestry resources, agricultural resources, aquatic algae, and other categories. Biomass energy has become one of the key directions for future energy development due to its outstanding advantages of renewability, environmental protection, and low carbon.

With the rapid development of science and technology, increasingly severe environmental problems, and excessive consumption of fossil energy, the utilization value of biomass energy has become more prominent. Its renewable characteristics, coupled with its potential huge proportion in the global energy structure, have made human beings pay increasing attention to biomass. The development and utilization of biomass energy have become an important trend in the energy field.

Technical Characteristics and Application Limitations

The characteristics of biomass are complex and diverse. To ensure the safe and stable operation of the boiler, targeted design is required according to its specific characteristics. The production process of biomass is complex, and different production processes need to be adopted for biomass with different characteristics. Therefore, the specific design scheme must be formulated in combination with actual conditions, and personalized co-firing technical solutions must be implemented.

Taking the pulverized coal boiler as an example, the combustion characteristics of biomass and pulverized coal are different. In order to make biomass better adapt to the pulverized coal boiler, this project adopts the method of independently arranging biomass burners to carry out coupled combustion with the original pulverized coal boiler. The biomass burners are installed in the secondary air wind box adjacent to the lower part of the C-layer pulverized coal burners, replacing the original secondary air nozzles. During the transformation process, the function, air volume, and co-current area of the secondary air are kept unchanged, and only the structure is rearranged, and biomass material nozzles are added to achieve efficient combustion of biomass in the pulverized coal boiler.

The complexity of biomass determines that not all biomass is suitable for boiler combustion. At present, diversified comprehensive utilization methods need to be adopted according to the type and quantity of biomass. The biomass co-firing technology has certain limitations in the application process. The co-firing technology of different types of biomass is difficult to simply replicate successful cases, and more is to draw on successful experience and plan applications according to the characteristics of specific biomass.

Process Flow and Construction Key Points

The biomass co-firing system is relatively complex, mainly including two key links: biomass pretreatment and biomass material transportation.

In the biomass pretreatment link, it is necessary to go through processes such as primary crushing, sorting, primary grinding, drying, and fine grinding in sequence, process the biomass into qualified materials, and send them to the powder silo to complete the pretreatment process.

In terms of biomass material transportation, considering the characteristics of biomass materials and the layout distance of the new system, pneumatic conveying is planned to be used. The Roots blower is used to provide high-pressure gas, and the materials output from the biomass powder silo are transported to the front of the boiler through a closed pipeline under the action of the gas. According to the layout structure of the biomass burners, the conveying pipeline is divided into two parts in front of the furnace and transported diagonally to the inlets of the biomass burners.

The entire biomass co-firing system is divided into two parts: outside the boiler room and inside the boiler room according to the process flow. Since this system is an added part, the construction outside the boiler room can be carried out when the boiler is in production and operation. The part inside the boiler room needs to be treated differently: the new pipeline system can be constructed according to the design drawings when the boiler is in operation, and attention should be paid to avoiding touching other equipment during the construction process; while the construction of the biomass burners and the access of the main control system must be carried out after the boiler is shut down to ensure the safety of construction and the smooth installation of the system.