It is 22 months since the project was started in Trondheim and the project is now well underway. In connection with the first-year reporting, the project submitted 22 of 24 deliverables (reports). This is very good for a project in which the demonstration of new technology is such a crucial part and it indicates that the project is progressing according to schedule.
NextGenBioWaste is a 4 year project, with a budget of about EUR 29 million. It is very useful experience for SINTEF to lead such a major project with international partners. It is a demanding job, but SINTEF’s project management has received a positive response from both the consortium and the Commission’s annual review.
Making SINTEF visible
The project enables us to coordinate our effort along with the most resourceful European academic circles and industries within the area, something that involves great challenges. The participants include 17 partners from 7 European countries, who represent R&D institutions, owners of installations (energy suppliers) and suppliers of technology. As the project coordinator, SINTEF works closely with all these partners and is able to expand its network of contacts in Europe. This role also benefits the position of SINTEF outside the consortium.
The importance of the combustion plant
NextGenBioWaste focuses on the combustion plant and follows the fuel from when it enters the plant to when it leaves it as flue gas. The project is divided into four sub-projects (SP); SP1 “Innovative fuel preparation and mixing”, SP2 ”Conversion”, SP3 ”Residue handling and use” and SP4 ”Dissemination”.
NextGenBioWaste deals with waste and biomass feedstocks and covers the supply chain from fuel preparation, via conversion to ash treatment and use.
Full-scale experiments
The project includes demonstration of new technology supported by research activities. The project participants will focus on technology that has already been tested at laboratory scale. During the project the solutions are to be scaled up to full scale at new plants or by rebuilding existing combustion facilities.
Some of the demonstrations are:
- A full-scale demonstration of a retrofit fluidised bed bottom design for combustion of 100 per cent of waste wood fuel
- Large-scale demonstration of advanced control systems enabling plant operators to obtain more stable conditions and improved electrical efficiency
- Large-scale tests of advanced boiler materials and cladding of superheater surfaces to reduce maintenance costs
- Large-scale demonstration of advanced combustion techniques using low excess air enabling more compact and cost-effective systems with higher electrical efficiency
- Full-scale demonstration of high-dust selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of NOx for improved electrical efficiency and environmental performance
- Full-scale demonstrations on the use of additives in order to reduce operation costs because of decreased fouling and to reduce maintenance costs via an increased lifetime
- Demonstration of novel design and retrofitting of boilers for improved efficiency
SINTEF’s role in the project
In addition to managing the project, SINTEF is also responsible for a sub-project concerned with information and the dissemination of results (SP4). Moreover, we have research tasks within two other sub-projects. Experiments will be carried out in an advanced multi-fuel reactor in order to study the effect of fuel quality, preparation and mixing on the flue-gas composition, as well as the ash quality. The results are to be used as a basis for the selection of fuels to be tested in demonstration at plants.
SINTEF will also study the effect of changing fuel quality and operational conditions with regard to corrosion, fouling and coating in combustion plants by using equilibrium calculations. Vattenfall (Sweden) will be a cooperation partner in this work.
In the boiler optimization work SINTEF is going to use computational fluid dynamics calculations (CFD) to study the transport and deposition of particles in the boiler for one of the demonstration plants in the project.
SINTEF will also study how changes in the combustion conditions in the furnace may contribute to reductions in NOx emissions. TNO and AVR from the Netherlands will be our partners in this work.
SINTEF's share of the budget is about EUR 2.7 million during the 4 year period. 50 per cent of this sum comes from the European Commission, while the Research Council of Norway covers part of SINTEF’s own contribution.
Project participants in front of ASM’s combustion plant in Brescia in Italy.
