Biomass District Energy in Virginia

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BiomassDistrict Energyin Virginia

• Morris A. Pierce
• February 11, 2009

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Energy in Europe

• Europe and especially Scandinavia were hit hard
  by the oil shocks of the 1970s
• Many countries pursued programs to reduce imports
  and increase energy efficiency
• Denmark has been particularly successful and has
  basically rebuilt its entire energy
  infrastructure over the past 30 years.
• In Jutland (the mainland part of Denmark), all
  electricity is produced by cogeneration and wind
  power.

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Small Biomass CHP Plant
2 to 5 MWe biomass CHP plants can achieve thermal
efficiencies above 90
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Hot Water Thermal Storage
Unlike electricity, hot water can be stored in a
simple tank, allowing it to be produced at the
most economical time and used when necessary.
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Virginia District Energy Goals

• Use local renewable resources to reduce use of
  imported oil for building heating
• Keep energy dollars in the local community
• Reduce energy costs and alleviate fuel poverty
• Increase efficiency of energy production,
  distribution use
• Increase local electric generation capacity
• Use low cost thermal energy to promote economic
  development
• Give communities control over their energy future

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District Energy System

• Customers willing to participate
• Low cost heat source
• Existing industry or power plant
• New plant utilizing local biomass
• Thermal distribution network

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Fuel Technology

• Long-term goal is to have one heating system
  serving every building in a community
• Fuel
• Whole tree chips (40 to 60 moisture)
• Other opportunity fuels can be used as available
• Technology
• Biomass heating plants for smaller systems
• Biomass combined heat and power plants for larger
  systems
• Use heat from larger electric plants where
  available
• Low temperature hot water district heating
• Thermally driven cooling to replace electric
  chillers

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Biomass Technology
Pellets, dry wood chips firewood
Able to burn wet wood chips
Biomass CHP gt5,000 MBH
Large biomass hot water generators 1,000 20,000
MBH
Small biomass hot water generators 180-3,000 MBH
Residential 50 - 150 MBH
MBH 100 1,000
10,000
100,000 Sq Ft 4,000 40,000
400,000
4,000,000
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Outdoor Water Boiler
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Biomass District Energy System
Fuel Delivery, Storage and Handling
Outputs
Combined Heat and Power Plant
Electric energy and capacity with Renewable
Energy Credits
Process steam to nearby industrial consumers (if
any)
Low temperature (200F) hot water for space and
water heating, snow melting, etc.
Cooling (chilled water, refrigeration)
Distributed Chillers
Future Biodiesel Refinery
Fuel supply trucks and machinery other users
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Biomass Plants

• Biomass gasifiers such as those made by Chiptec,
  Messersmith and others
• Output range 1 to 36 mmbtu/hr
• Flue gas heat recovery
• Increase thermal capacity efficiency
• Capacity driven by return water temperature of
  district heating network
• Larger plants to employ combined heat power
• Heat output above 5 mmbtu/hr
• Factors Thermal load profile, fuel cost,
  electric price
• Sited at critical locations such as hospitals

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Modular Heating Plants

• Small modular biomass heating plants can be
  installed to serve several nearby buildings
• Additional modules can be added at the same site,
  or new modular plants can be built in the same
  community to facilitate building out a thermal
  network
• Over time these small heating nodes can be
  interconnected into a larger network

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Modular Biomass Plant
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Combined Heat Power

• Generate electricity at very low incremental
  energy use
• Embed in local distribution network

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District Heating Networks

• Designed and built to European Standards to
  minimize installation cost and thermal losses
  while maximizing long service life.
• Quality control of design and installation is
  critical.
• Long service life is dependent on maintaining
  proper water treatment and temperatures
• Can include conduits for fiber optic networks

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Hot Water Piping Network
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New Fiber Optic Network
Could be installed along with the hot water
piping network to deliver giga/tera-bit data
capacity to every consumer
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Building Connections

• Develop standard building connections
• Use pre-assembled heat exchanger stations
• Use proven hot water energy meters connected to a
  real-time metering network

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Typical Building Connection
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Energy Transfer Stations
Connects district system to individual building
systems.
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Brazed Plate Heat Exchanger
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Building Conversions

• Central hydronic (hot water) and hot air systems
  are relatively easy to connect.
• Steam, electric, and distributed hot air heaters
  will require specific engineering solution
• Implementing additional energy conservation
  measures is highly desirable

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Additional Uses

• Thermal cooling to displace electric chillers
• Snow melting
• Process loads such as kiln drying, etc

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Cooling with Hot Water
Liquid Desiccant Dehumidification
Absorption Chiller
Using hot water for cooling service provides a
double benefit summer electric demand is
reduced while cogenerating additional electricity
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Snow Melting

• All three large hot water systems in the US use
  hot water for snow melting
• Very strong interest in incorporating snow
  melting in new systems
• Ideally designed to use return water to increase
  system differential temperature
• Can be very expensive and must be designed and
  installed correctly

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Snow Melting

• Low cost hot water can be used for sidewalk snow
  melting
• Reduces labor and fuel expense
• Reduce use of salt

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Labor Force

• Design
• Construction
• Plant distribution networks
• Building connections conversions
• Biomass fuel supply
• Plants and systems will be designed to run
  unattended with remote monitoring
• Larger high pressure steam plants may need
  on-site stationary engineers

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Initial Process

• Identify potential systems with up to 5 ()
  customers
• Isolated large buildings
• Isolated campuses
• Building clusters within larger communities
• Maps aerial photos, assessment data, local
  knowledge
• Contact potential customers
• Obtain heating apparatus and fuel data
• Interested in long-term energy supply
  arrangement?
• Identify potential plant sites
• Permanent or temporary?
• Heating only or CHP?
• Prepare preliminary technical economic proposal
  for customer(s)

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Ownership Options

• Single-customer systems
• Owned by customer
• Owned by for-profit entity
• Probably cannot be owned by an un-related
  not-for-profit
• Multi-customer systems
• Not-for-profit corporation
• Municipality
• For-profit entity

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Plant Ownership

• Biomass heating or CHP plants could be owned by
  the same entity owning the district heating
  network, or by a separate entity
• Modular heating plants can be leased
• Biomass CHP plants qualify for numerous tax
  credits

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Project Developers

• Northeast District Energy Corporation
• Working on more than 25 systems in Pennsylvania,
  New York, and New England
• Has secured IRS 501(c)(3) recognition to own
  district energy networks as a not-for-profit

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Northeast District Energy Corporation (NDEC)

• Provide technical, legal, financial, and
  operating assistance to local district energy
  systems
• Specialized partners
• District heating piping system design
  installation
• Biomass heating CHP plants
• Biomass fuel supply
• Metering, billing collection
• Also provides marketing, customer service,
  underground utility locating, system expansion,
  etc

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Development Funding

• NDECs current focus is securing up to 5 million
  in funding support to develop an initial group of
  systems
• Development fees from these systems would be used
  to establish a revolving fund to develop
  additional projects

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Potential Funding Sources

• Energy Services Companies willing to enter this
  market
• Grants
• Foundations
• Government agencies
• Union pension funds
• Corporations
• Venture capital
• Establish for-profit development corporation that
  could provide return on investment

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Challenges

• Meltdown of U.S. financial system
• Projects serving three to five credit-worthy
  customers can probably be financed
• Legal and financial community wants to see a
  proven track record before doing larger projects
• Soft oil prices

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Contact

• Morris A Pierce
• 585 275-4331
• mapi_at_mail.rochester.edu
• www.energy.rochester.edu/ndec/