The Torsional Chamber as an Alternative to the Technologies Usually Employed in Biomass Co-firing

Royo, J.; Sebastin, F.; Canals, P and Rodrguez, N.* CIRCE Foundation Centre of Research for Energy Resources and Consumptions Mara de Luna, 3; 50018 Zaragoza (Spain) * Independent consultant

ABSTRACT Co-firing of dry biomass resources in pulverised coal power plants is, as is well known, a technically feasible and environmentally interesting technology. Nevertheless, in order to achieve its widespread implantation it is necessary to ensure its economic feasibility which is conditioned so much by the investment required to adapt the power plant to the new situation, as by the new operation costs involved. These new operation costs are mainly due to the biomass pre-treatments required to achieve optimum combustion efficiency. In many cases, when biomass resources are fed into a coal utility boiler their moisture content has to be reduced and their particle size has to be diminished in order to improve their performance. An interesting option so as to reduce co-firing costs is the installation of a Torsional Chamber in the coal utility boiler as the biomass burner. These devices, which have already demonstrated their suitability in several biomass resources combustion plants but have never been tested in co-firing experiences yet, consist of a water cooled ring swirl burner (the coal utility boiler water will flow in it) in which inside, biomass particles are aerodynamically suspended until they are completely burned. The most interesting advantage of this technology is its high biomass particles residence time, which permits to use, depending on the biomass fuel used, a particle size up to 30 mm and a moisture content on a wet basis up to 30% maintaining, at least, the efficiency of the pulverised biomass burners and therefore providing pre-treatments costs saving. The objectives of this paper are both to put forward this new co-firing alternative and to compare it economically with other options: the utilization of the existing pulverised coal burners, the installation of new pulverised biomass burners or the integration of a grate in the furnace of the coal utility boiler.

1.- Introduction Socio-economic and environmental benefits related to the use of biomass (CO2 neutral character, acidic flue gas emissions reduction, job-creation, energy dependency reduction, etc.) are the reasons why this renewable energy source has been strongly supported. A significant increment of the contribution of biomass resources in the energy market was expected. However, current biomass penetration is slower and lower than it would be desired. An interesting and promising alternative so as to increase biomass share in the energy market is the thermochemical transformation of these renewable resources in coal-fired power stations, concept usually referred to as co-firing, as is well known, defined as the simultaneous combustion of different fuels, generally biomass and coal, in the same utility boiler. Nevertheless, in order to achieve its widespread implantation it is necessary to ensure its economic feasibility which is conditioned so much by the investment required to adapt the power plant to the new situation, as by the new operation costs involved. These new operation costs are mainly due to the biomass pre-treatments required to achieve optimum combustion efficiency. Although co-firing can be carried out in every power plant typology [1-3], the application of this technology should focus in pulverised coal units as they are the most widespread type of boilers at present. In order to obtain high generation efficiency, this type of power plants work with very short fuel residence time by means of feeding finely pulverised coal particles with low moisture content. As residual biomass resources have different characteristics compared to the fossil fuel which is going to replace, some steps are to be taken to ensure its complete combustion in a boiler that, at first, was not designed for these fuels. Some consist of the adjustment of the fuel parameters by employing moisture content and particle size reduction pre-treatments, and others consist of the assembling in the boiler of additional feeding devices and biomass burners designed or adapted to achieve an efficient combustion of the residues although, in many cases, both of them have to be used together. The location of a Torsional Chamber in the coal utility boiler as a biomass burner is an interesting co-firing alternative. These devices, which have already demonstrated their suitability in several biomass resources combustion plants but have never been tested in cofiring experiences yet, set high biomass particles residence time, which permits to use, depending on the biomass type, a particle size up to 30 mm and a moisture content on a wet

basis up to 30% maintaining, at least, the efficiency of the pulverised biomass burners and therefore providing pre-treatments costs saving [4]. The objectives of this paper are both to put forward this new co-firing alternative and to compare it economically with other options: the utilization of the existing pulverised coal burners, the installation of new pulverised biomass burners or the integration of a grate in the furnace of the coal utility boiler. 2.- Co-firing technology options in pulverised coal utility boilers. Despite the co-firing concept is a low cost alternative compared to all other renewable power generation options, and has been tested successfully in several European and American power plants [1-3, 5], there are some aspects which have to be analysed in detail for each utility boiler in order to achieve an efficient and feasible alternative which could emerged as a frequent operation technology. These aspects are, for example, the most suitable coal replacement value by biomass; the pre-treatments which have to be employed and their optimization; the most appropriate biomass particles feeding location; the most suitable biomass burner technology to be employed, etc. There are several alternativeswhich can be used to fed biomass resources into a pulverised coal-fired utility boiler. The final co-firing option installed mainly depends on the boiler and burners typology, the type of coal employed, and the local biomass resources characteristics. Basically, the following concepts are the ones which are generally used in order to co-fire biomass with coal: Biomass addition to the coal flow and blend feeding to the coal burner; Separately biomass handling and feeding through existing coal burners: o Blending it with the coal before the burner entrance; o Feeding independently from coal using burner free ducts; o Switching one or more coal burners to biomass (shutting off coal); New specific pulverised biomass burners retrofitting and pre-treatment equipments installation; Integration of a biomass grate in the furnace of the coal utility boiler; Combustion of biomass in a separate unit and utilisation of the created heat in the boiler of the existing plant;

Gasification of biomass and combustion of the product gas as an additional fuel in a coal boiler.

The first option, which implies using existing fuel processing and handling equipment has been tested only at small biomass feeding percentages (up to 2% on a heat basis, or about 5% by mass) [6-7] because due to the inappropriateness of coal mills to reduce biomass particle size, higher replacements could cause blockages or increase fire risks. Although these aspect depends strongly on the coal and biomass type employed, in general, higher coal replacements by biomass using this co-firing concept seems to be inadvisable. In this paper a replacement up to approximately 10% of coal by biomass on a heat basis is going to be considered and for this reason this co-firing alternative has not be analysed. When combustion of biomass is done in a separate unit and the generated heat is introduced in the boiler of the existing plant or when biomass is converted into a gas and this gas is burned in conventional coal boilers, no severe modifications of the existing utility boiler are necessary but, at the present time, the specific investment (/kWe) of the biomass conversion plant is relatively high compared to other co-firing options [8-10] and similar to, for example, installing in some utility boilers a grate. This paper does not compare the gasification or the completely separate biomass combustion units but these co-firing options could be identified, from an economic point of view, to the grate integration in the furnace of the coal utility boiler. The following paragraphs go deeply into the alternatives finally selected. Separately biomass handling and feeding through existing coal burners Generally, coal specific volumetric energy density is much higher than dry biomass resources one (i.e., some anthracites have 7 GJ/m3 compared to 2.5 GJ/m3 which, on average, have forestry biomass resources) which implies that higher volumes of fuel have to be fed into the utility boiler in order to generate the same amount of energy in a heat basis. However, some pulverised coal power plants employ coals which have, approximately, the same energy density than the biomass resources. This similarity helps to save investment costs when adapting a coal fired plant to co-firing because some of the coal handling and feeding devices, such as the burners, can be used to introduce biomass particles into the boiler. In these cases, co-firing investment costs are reduced considerably, they only include the pre-treatment equipments needed to prepare biomass particles and their handling and feeding and, in some

cases, minor modifications in order to improve biomass particles combustion in the coal burner. Several experiences have been carried out in order to demonstrate both technical and environmental feasibilities of this co-firing option, in most of the cases feeding biomass particles through the lower coal burners so as to increase biomass particles residence time and therefore, reducing unburned particles appearance risks [11]. Normally, biomass is directly fed to the coal flame centre, which allows working with higher particle sizes; many tests have reached good results employing 5 mm [5, 11 and 16] or even higher mesh size sieves. In these cases pre-treatments costs can be considerably reduced because no severe milling or drying processes are required, although on the other hand, unburned particles percentage slightly increase, both in flying ashes and in bottom ashes, which leads to efficiency looses. On the contrary, when small particle sizes are employed (about 1 mm size) looses are negligible but investment and operation pre-treatment costs increase considerably. New specific pulverised biomass burners retrofitting and pre-treatment equipments installation In some cases, coal or biomass resources characteristics force to avoid the employment of the existing coal burners when trying to adapt the coal power plant to the co-firing technology and additional specific biomass burners have to be retrofitted, normally designed to work with pulverised biomass particles provided that they guarantee their transformation in the coal utility boiler. These new burners are installed as lower as possible in order to increase biomass particles residence time into the boiler (which was designed to burn approximately 70 m size coal particles) or in the upper part of the boiler, as reburning burners, so as to decrease NOx emissions. Both biomass injection ways set similar pre-treatment requirements than using the existing coal burners but higher investment costs due to, in addition to pretreatment devices, they require new burners retrofitting. Integration of a biomass grate in the furnace of the coal utility boiler Other alternative which has also been carried out is the combustion of biomass resources on a grate integrated in the furnace of the coal boiler. This option does not necessitate drying nor milling processes so that it saves operation and investment pre-treatment costs but, on the contrary, the installation of such a grate involves high retrofitting costs and needs sufficient free space below the boiler which makes in many cases a retrofit impossible [10, 12].

Provided that this co-firing option does not require pre-treatments and because of its retrofitting investment costs are similar to the ones involved when combustion of biomass is done in a completely separate unit or when biomass is gasified and the gas generated is burned in the existing utility boiler, this alternative could be considered as an example of the three of them. This paper puts forward another co-firing option which means the retrofitting of a Torsional Chamber as a biomass burner in the coal utility boiler. The next section describes deeply into both this biomass combustors technology and this co-firing alternative. 3.- The Torsional Chamber: an efficient biomass burner. The Torsional Chamber, which is a horizontal cylinder connected to a boiler through an inverted-cone-shaped neck (see Figure 1) is essentially a much-improved cyclonic combustor [4].

Figure 1. A Torsional Chamber without its external insulation layer. This particular chamber is used to burn sunflower hulls and produces, connected to a boiler, 20 t/h of saturated steam at 12 bar.

The secondary air is tangentially injected into the Torsional Chamber by means of nozzles. This generates aerodynamic fields which provide high residence times for the fuel particles (which are fed in pneumatic suspension), enough to ensure a complete combustion. The combustion gases, along with a part of the ashes, leave the chamber through an invertedcone-shaped neck and enter the boiler, while the remainder of the generated ashes are periodically removed from the Torsional Chamber*.

More information related to this technology characteristics could be obtained in references [4, 13 and 14]

The chamber is formed by tube rings connected to upper and lower headers, shaping a completely water-cooled surface where the energy generated in the combustion process begins to be transferred to the heated fluid. The whole tube system is connected to the circulation of the boiler by an independent system of risers and downcomers. In this way, the recovery of thermal energy generated in the chamber is maximized, and refractory cladding (and, therefore, maintenance) is minimized. The only refractory bricks needed are located on the closed end of the chamber. The Torsional Chamber is suitable to burn any solid biomass which can be transported in pneumatic suspension. Typical fuels include wood chips, sawdust, sunflower hulls, cotton husk, grape and olive marcs and straw, [4] and it would be an appropriate technology to transform with high efficiency and low costs a lot more of them (the Circe Foundation has in its co-firing laboratory an experimental Torsional Chamber (850 kWth) which is currently used in order to do several tests with different biomass resources so as to optimize their thermochemical transformation [15]). The suitability for pneumatic suspension depends on the particle density/cross sectional area ratio but, for many biomass resources, this means roughly that the particles must have diameters ranging from 0,1 to 30 mm. There is no limitation whatsoever in burning together particles with wildly different sizes or densities, as long as all of them can be maintained in suspension. If the moisture content ranges from 10 to 30% the combustion air must be pre-heated to 100 to 150 C. Fuels with moisture content under 10% on a wet basis can be injected into the Torsional Chamber without any additional treatment [4]. The main advantages of the Torsional Chamber can be summarized as follows (100% biomass-fired) [4]: Its investment cost is comparable to that of a grate and lower than a fluidized bed; The Torsional Chamber technology is scalable over a wide range of required power, from 750 kWth up to 30,000 kWth; Most existing boilers can be retrofitted with Torsional Chambers; It allows an efficient combustion with very little air excess and with high degree of completation. As a consequence, the gaseous emissions (particles, VOCs and CO) are within current and foreseeable regulations without complex fume depuration systems; The combustion is very stable throughout the operational range of the chamber;

It allows a quick regulation, comparable to that of a fossil fuel burner.

Torsional Chamber and co-firing This paper puts forward a new co-firing option, the installation of a Torsional Chamber in the coal utility boiler as a biomass burner. The Torsional Chamber would be retrofitted so coal utility boiler water will flow in it, whereas biomass combustion gases, after transferring part of their energy content, will go into the coal utility boiler through the inverted-coneshaped neck where they would complete their combustion if necessary (See Figure 2). The correct adaptation position boiler wall chosen, height, etc- has to be analysed in detail for each installation but provided that practically complete biomass combustion takes place within the Torsional Chamber, its final position should not affect the global boiler efficiency.

Figure 2. Retrofitting of the Torsional Chamber in the coal utility boiler diagram.

By this co-firing option both high biomass efficiency combustion and low pre-treatment requirements fit together. In spite of the fact no co-firing installations have retrofitted this option yet, its technical viability could be ensured when large biomass combustion projects using this combustor are considered or extrapolated. In the following section this new co-firing option is going to be compared with the alternatives which were chosen before.

4.- Economic Analysis. Co-firing in existing pulverised coal-fired power plants makes it possible to achieve much better efficiency in converting biomass fuel into electric power compared to stand-alone biomass plants. Nevertheless, in many cases co-firing can be only employed with low-cost or free resources due to the investment and operation costs which are involved in the modification of the power plant. One of the key factors which is currently developed in order to obtain co-firing technology take off is the diminution of these costs. Subsequently, four different co-firing options costs are compared, 1- Separately biomass particles handling and feeding independently from coal through existing coal burners; 2- New specific pulverised biomass burners retrofitting; 3- Integration of a biomass grate in the furnace of the coal utility boiler; 4- Installing a Torsional Chamber as a biomass burner. Provided that is impossible to consider a general analysis due to the great amount of the factors involved in the final result (coal and biomass employed, utility boiler typology, power plant output, biomass heat replacement rates, etc.) the following hypothesis are going to be considered in order to compare the four options. In spite of the fact that is an example with specific data, the results that will be obtained with other assumptions would be quite similar. The existing power plant produces 150 MWe with a 33.3% net efficiency. 10% of the coal flow is replaced by biomass (on an energy basis), that is, 15 MWe (45MWth) are generated by this renewable resource. Forestry biomass resources are employed. It is considered that these resources have the following characteristics: o LHV (dry basis) = 19,250 kJ/kg; o Biomass resources maximum particle size (as received in the power plant) is 300 mm, that is, they are previously chipped before transporting them to the plant; o Two different biomass moisture contents (as received in the power plant) are going to be considered, 45% (green wood) and 25% (natural drying is applied).

When the first co-firing option is considered it is assumed that both the coal type and the utility boiler employed allow to use the existing coal burners in order to fed biomass particles.

When the third co-firing option is taken into account it is assumed that there is sufficient free space at the bottom of the boiler to install a biomass grate.

When the four alternatives are compared no efficiency penalties attributable to biomass feeding into the boiler (mainly caused to unburned carbon in bottom ashes and flying ashes) are going to be taken into account.

With regard to the last assumption, the boiler efficiency diminution would be lower when employing the second and the fourth co-firing options due to they use specific high efficiency biomass burners instead of adapting a coal burner or employing a lower efficiency biomass combustion technology. However, it is difficult to obtain data which could be used to compare all the technologies considered. Biomass pre-treatment requirements and pre-treatment equipment needed. In order to feed biomass particles into the coal utility boiler different equipment and pretreatment processes are needed for each co-firing option. 1- Separately biomass handling and feeding through existing coal burners. Although this option does not involve new specific burners retrofitting, due to biomass particles are fed directly to the coal flame centre and, normally, through the lower burners with available free ducts (which implies increasing biomass residence time), particle sizes between 3 and 6 mm with a moisture content up to 25% on a wet basis have been tested with negligible boiler efficiency diminutions [5, 11 and 16]. To achieve these particle properties the fitting of a size reduction plant would be required. If the particle size objective involves a reduction from 300 mm down to 3 mm, the installation of a two stages size reduction plant will be necessary (this plant could possibly include a hog and a pulverizer or two pulverizers); and if the particles moisture content needs to be decreased down to 25% a dryer would also be required. 2- New specific pulverised biomass burners retrofitting. References analysis shows that so as to achieve efficient biomass combustion results different biomass particle sizes have been tested, which vary between 0.5 mm and 6 mm. However, with modern burner-technology, the particle size distribution of the biomass as

large as 100% < 8 mm and 30-40% < 1mm can be accepted [17]. With regard to particles moisture content, it has been assumed that the maximum value which could be acceptable is 25% (on a wet basis). For these reasons, the same pre-treatment requirements and the same devices are assumed for this option than for the previous alternative. 3- Integration of a biomass grate in the furnace of the coal utility boiler. Certainly, this is the option which requires lower pre-treatment costs due to this technology is able to work even with worse particle characteristics than the ones which have been considered to compare all the options. Nevertheless, when this alternative is compared to the other options it is compulsory to consider that itrequires a non negligible electric operation costs, about 8 kWe/MWth, due to it is necessary to work the grill [10]. 4- Installing a Torsional Chamber as a biomass burner. This technology is able to manage, without noticeable efficiency diminutions, several biomass resources with up to 30 mm particle size and with a moisture content up to 30% on a wet basis [4]. In order to compare the four options, some slightly more restrictive working conditions have been imposed, 25 mm particle size and a 30% moisture content. To achieve these particle characteristics the installation of a dryer and a hog or a pulverizer will be required. The drying equipment is only necessary when considering that the plant is working with green wood. Biomass resources pre-treatment equipment investment costs and operation consumption. The following table (Table 1) shows the considered pre-treatment equipment investment costs and their thermal and/or electric energy consumption during the process. With regard to the dryer thermal consumption it has been assumed that this equipment is fed with the selfsame biomass resources. According to this, the higher drying requirements, the higher biomass resources consumption will be required. Previously resources drying means slight energy penalizations compared to feeding wet biomass resources into the boiler, but on the contrary, implies lower consumptions in the particle size reduction devices and better utility boiler behaviour. The former requires 3,100 kJ per kilogramme of evaporated water [18], and the latter, assuming a 85% thermal boiler efficiency, needs 2,875 kJ per kilogramme of evaporated water. Despite having higher energy consumptions, the installation of this equipment would be in many cases compulsory when working with several resources at the considered moisture content.

Table 1. Pre-treatment equipment investment costs and energy consumption during the process.
Thermal energy consumption Electric energy consumption (over dry biomass) 50 kJ/kg (3) 117.5-160 kJ/kg (5) 460 kJ/kg (3)

Equipment

Specific Investment

Dryer Hog or pulverizer (300 mm down to 25 mm) Pulverizer (25 down to 3 mm)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

110 /(kg/h)of evaporated water (1) 3,100 kJ/kgof evaporated water.(2) 7 /(kg/h)of dry biomass (4) 13 /(kg/h)of dry biomass (4) -----------

: from [18, 19] and manufacturers data. : from [18]. : from [20]. : from manufacturers data. : from [20]. The lower value corresponds with dry wood (moisture content, 20%) and the higher corresponds with

green wood (moisture content, 50%).

Total specific investment (without considering pre-treatment equipments). The most difficult issue to be appraised is, probably, the new installation and retrofitting costs needed to adapt the existing power plant to the co-firing technology. References analysis shows specific investment values very different amongst each other, mainly because tests have been carried out with several types of coal, various biomass resources (which affect enormously pre-treatments involved) and different coal utility boilers typology. Moreover, available information is extremely heterogeneous due to, generally, these data comprise different number and typology of new equipment acquisition, include different adaptation works or compare theoretical to real costs in a particular installation and the latter always have its own determining factors which separate real from theoretical costs. This aspect is specially critical when retrofitting a grate in the furnace of the coal utility boiler (third option) due to the lack of experiences or installations: considering theoretical values, the specific investment costs required to adapt an existing power plant to co-firing by adding a grate in the furnace vary between 400 /kWe [10] and 800-900 /kWe [12] depending on the total output generated with the biomass resources, 28 MWe and 4.2 MWe respectively. However, it has to be considered that when a real grate adaptation was executed (4.2 MWe generated with biomass) the final investment costs were only 333 /kWe, that is, lower than they were expected, due to in this particular case already existing biomass storing and conveying systems were easily adapted [10, 12].

In order to carry out the economic analysis several data or references were looked up and finally, average real data were used when it was possible and theoretical values were employed when there were not other sources or when there was little information with great discrepancies amongst data. In this way, the total investment costs (without including the pretreatment equipment) which were finally employed are the following, 330 /kWe when considering both the specific new biomass burners retrofitting (21) and the Torsional Chamber adaptation. Although from data obtained from the manufacturers** the theoretical specific investment costs needed to retrofit Torsional Chambers as a co-firing option are slightly lower, 300 /kWh, due to still no co-firing experiences have installed this technology, the same value as the one employed with other burners was used; 230 /kWe when feeding biomass through existing coal burners [5, 22 and 23]; 600 /kWe when integrating a grate in the furnace of the coal utility boiler. This value has to be considered with some reserves according to the determining factors exposed previously. Results The following tables show the coal power plant retrofitting costs for the four co-firing options. According to the hypothesis explained before, forestry biomass generates 15 MWe of the total plant output and two different biomass resources moisture content as received are considered (25 and 45 % on a wet basis). As it can be seen in both tables, retrofitting a Torsional Chamber as a biomass burner in the coal utility boiler is, amongst the alternatives considered, the most profitable co-firing option because: When compared to the existing coal burners utilisation this alternative requires higher investment widely balanced with lower pre-treatment costs. If it is compared to the new specific pulverised biomass burners retrofitting this alternative implies lower pre-treatment investment and operation costs due to it is capable of working with less restrictive biomass characteristics. This result is specially significant provided that amongst the four analysed options, both the

**

AGREST Equipamientos Industriales, srl. Av. Belgrano, 355, P. 13. C1092AAD. Buenos Aires (Argentina).

Torsional Chamber and the Pulverised biomass burner adaptation, do not depend on the coal or utility boiler typology. Despite of having no pre-treatment costs, the integration of a biomass grate investment is excessively high. Nevertheless, as was mentioned before, this investment has to be considered very cautiously. Biomass grate co-firing option analysis results are, in a sense, similar to the ones that would be obtained if a separate biomass combustion unit were installed (using the created heat in the boiler of the existing plant) or if a biomass gasifier were installed (employing the product gas as an additional fuel in a coal boiler). Pre-treatments could be avoided in the three alternatives and in many cases, the investment costs would possibly be quite similar.
Table 2. Retrofitting and operation costs when considering that biomass has 300 mm particle size and 45% moisture content on a wet basis (as received).
FORESTRY BIOMASS AS RECEIVED: 300 mm and 45% moisture content CO-FIRING OPTION Coal burner Total Investment (k) Specific Investment (k/kWe) Biomass consumption (kWthh/year)(6) Electric self consumptions (MWeh/year) (7) Electric self consumptions (%)(7) Annual costs (k)(8) Specific costs (c/kWeh) (9)
(6)

Biomass burner 5,652 377 45,839 13,493 11.2 3.302 2.75

Grate 9,000 600 45,000 2,880 2.4 3.356 2.80

Torsional Chamber 5,425 362 45,672 3,849 3.2 2.977 2.48

4,152 277 45,839 13,493 11.2 3.117 2.60

: Over L.H.V, considering both 8,000 annual working hours and that there is no efficiencies penalty attributable to the biomass feeding. : Only considering the pre-treatment plant electric self consumptions, that is, without including general plant electric self consumptions such as cooling system, gas cleaning, etc. : It only includes the biomass cost (0.6 c/kWthh over L.H.V.), the electricity self consumed costs and the investment repayment costs (considering a ten years repayment period and a 4% interest rate).

(7)

(8)

(9)

: These values do not consider neither staff costs nor general costs (common devices repayment, general plant electric self consumptions, etc.) increment.

Table 3. Retrofitting and operation costs when considering that biomass has 300 mm particle size and 25% moisture content on a wet basis (as received).
FORESTRY BIOMASS AS RECEIVED: 300 mm and 25% moisture content CO-FIRING OPTION Coal burner Total Investment (k) Specific Investment (k/kWe) Biomass consumption (kWthh/year)(6) Electric self consumptions (MWeh/year) (7) Electric self consumptions (%)(7) Annual costs (k)(8) Specific costs (c/kWeh) (9)
(6) (7) (8) (9)

Biomass burner 5,126 342 45,000 12,393 10.3 3,164 2.64

Grate 9,000 600 45,000 2,880 2.4 3,356 2.80

Torsional Chamber 5,012 334 45,000 2,433 2.0 2,851 2.38

3,626 242 45,000 12,393 10.3 2,979 2.48

, , : the same as the ones in Table 2.

5.- Conclusions. A new co-firing option, which implies the retrofitting of a Torsional Chamber in the pulverised coal-fired utility boiler as a biomass burner, has been put forward. This alternative offers the following advantages: The Torsional Chamber could be adapted to every utility boilers typology and it could be used with a wide range of biomass resources; It requires low fuel pre-treatments, particle size up to 30 mm and moisture content on a wet basis up to 30%; Retrofitting investment costs are only slightly higher than the ones involved in the existing coal burners adaptation; No coal replacement by biomass percentage limits exist;

In order to compare this alternative to the usually employed co-firing options an economic analysis including retrofitting investment costs and operation and investment pretreatment costs has been carried out. This analysis has shown that the Torsional Chamber adaptation is the most profitable co-firing option. The economic advantages of this alternative could be even higher since the specific installation costs which have been employed are higher than the theoretical ones and because the analysis does not consider that employing the

Torsional Chamber, as with pulverised biomass burners retrofitting, implies lower unburned carbon levels than with other options. Moreover, this method requires lower self electric consumptions than others (excepting the grate option) so employing this co-firing option would even be more economically attractive if renewable electric generation premiums or emission penalizations are considered. Finally, the Torsional Chamber retrofitting as a biomass burner is an economic and technical option which should be taken into account when replacing coal by biomass in a coal utility boiler. The most important barrier to achieve co-firing widespread implantation is its economic feasibility which is conditioned so much by the investment required to adapt the power plant to the new situation, as by the new operation costs involved, so the Torsional Chamber co-firing option costs diminution should help to increase biomass share in the energy market, with the environmental advantages that this aspect will bring with.

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