A Comparison of Different Gas Turbine Concepts Using Biomass Fuel

This paper aims to assess the performance of the Externally Fired Gas Turbine cycle (EFGT) and a variant, ICEFGT (InterCooled Externally Fired Gas Turbine), and Biomass Integrated Gasification Intercooled Recuperated cycle (BIG/ICR), all using biomass as fuel – solid in the EFGT cases and gasified in the BIG/ICR cycle. The results are compared with the performance of a Biomass Integrated Gasification Gas Turbine (BIG/GT), as a representative of the most common use of biomass in gas turbine cycles. The energy and exergy analysis detailed here shows that if the challenges of the design and construction of the heat exchanger can be met, the externally fired cycles show great promise.

Sandro B Ferreira, Pericles Pilidis, Marco A R Nascimento