FORCE Technology has joined forces with five counterparts from Sweden, Finland, Holland, Germany and Austria to study the actual operating conditions of combined heat and power plants using solid biofuels.
|
|
|
The efficiency of combined heat and power plants using solid biofuels is poorer than expected. |
These installations are often presented (in the media, in colourful pamphlets, in the political planning process in the EU and in its member states) as a well-known technology with high (del) efficiency and stable operations. Until now, however, nobody has tried to benchmark these installations to see how they actually perform in day-to-day operations.
The study shows that the expectations to electrical efficiency, availability and use of capacity are often far too high. In practice, the installations come out poorer than expected in these important performance parameters, and as a consequence the operational economic performance of the plants are very often poorer than expected.
