Generating electricity from wood waste

[Kansas]

First of all, maybe this has been extensively covered. I couldn't find anything specific in my searches on the forum. Maybe I wasn't looking in the right place.

I got a newsletter from the Kansas Forest Service that had a section in it about using wood waste for heat, and also electricity. Seems they have contacts for consulting and getting it done, both themselves and engineers. . I called today and got a call back this afternoon, with a meeting set up Monday. I have no idea if it will be feasible. But here is our situation. We are already going to use our gasification unit for heat, but I'm wondering about the electric side of things.

We currently are paying about 1000 a month in electric costs between the two places. When we move to the other place, we are moving from a regular energy company to an REA company. I know the costs will go up. Plus a bit more equipment going in, such as a wood waste grinder. Operating at peak demand is killing us, but we really can't stop it right now.   My guess is our electric costs will be up around 18000 to 20000 a year. We just got our wood gasification unit, and I don't know if that could be set up to run a turbine (I assume steam) and do it cost effective.We could run that in the summertime, maybe winter as well.  We do have net metering in Kansas now. I was surprised; the local REA was actually supportive of the possible project, and may well attend the meeting Monday. I know nothing about what is involved, and just starting to do due diligence to figure it all out. I assume some people on here have checked into it. Is it feasible? Obviously fuel is not an issue. I would prefer to use dropoffs and side slabs rather than chip and use those. Any comments are appreciated.

[red oaks lumber]

a few years back i looked at generating my own elec. and selling the excess back to the power com. upon further searching i found in wisconsin that rea or coop's don't have to buy back any electricty. my advice to you  talk to someone at the public service commison they should be able to tell you about the letter of the law.if all that looks good, ya go for it

[Larry]

Northwest Missouri University (Maryville, Mo.) has been active in the cogeneration field for some 30 years.  They used to buy wood waste from local sawmills...maybe they still do.  Since I no longer live up there I haven’t kept up on what there doing. 

A quick google turned up this link that may be of interest.

Utilization of Alternative Fuels

Short excerpt from the link.

With fluctuating electrical energy prices, the university believes it is wise to expand its system to include the ability to generate electricity through non-hazardous, biodegradable waste. Northwest's vision is to establish a Graduate Applied Research Center in its Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship to provide:

    A site for Northwest students to apply what they learn in the classroom.
    Serve as a demonstration facility where regional businesses and municipalities can  bring samples of their non-hazardous waste materials for evaluation.

Research will study future options such as small-scale electrical generation capacity. The generator might be powered by gasifying bio-fuels and then combusting those gases in a turbine.

They used to be quite proud of showing off there toys...for some reason I went through there plant on some kind of tour.

Might be worth a call to wrangle an invite.

[Al_Smith]

To be economical any generation of electric power has to done on a large scale .As such the power plant plus the generater should be ran as close to max power as possible  for the best economy .

These factors are why the power companies either get the extra power they need off the grid,use peaker generaters or sell the excess on the grid .It comes down to which works better for them during peak power or lesser demands on the system .They have a bank of computers and a zillion accountants that have it down to a science .

As far as waste wood generation a compnay called Hoge lumber in New Knoxville Ohio ,about 30 miles from me that operates a wood fired generater and supplies power for their plant plus sells the excess .This company is the largest supplier of bowling alley  maple in the world . They have a site ,you can Google it if you like .

[Ianab]

Yeah, the problem is to do it on a relatively small scale (at a sensible cost)

This is  a study done of the Waipa sawmill near Rotorua. But they have a 40MW boiler and use that to drive a 3.5MW steam turbine to generate power, then the steam goes to run the drying kilns. But at that level they generate all the power for a large mill, and have power left over to sell.

But that's an expensive sort of operation, a 40bar steam boiler has it's own issues. Not just something that you sit in the corner and forget about.

If you are generating wood gas it might be practical to run a conventional generator set with a large gas powered engine? Maybe research the generators they make to use Methane from Landfills as it would be a similar sort of setup.

Whether it going to be economic, I don't know?

Ian

[Kansas]

That is the problem as I see it. Economy of scale. Just not sure a smaller sawmill can do it. But then, not sure it can't. Especially with used equipment as cheap as it is these days.

[Ianab]

Yeah, I didn't say impossible, just tricky.

I'd be looking at what the guys with the wood burning trucks are doing and seeing if you could adapt that to a generator?
I know some medium size mills run from a diesel genset to avoid the line and peak charges. Although it costs more to generate power that way, if they had to pay excessive line charges and peak rates it can be a lot cheaper. Burning your own fuel should help.

Maybe set up a propane tank as a backup?

How much power are you talking?

Ian

[SwampDonkey]

Mills here are complaining about rates, and they pay a lot less than I do per KWh. Some pulp mills even generate power or they would not be in operation. AV Cell in Nackawick uses enough juice to power the city of Fredericton, 56,000 residents. Will you have a good steady supply of hog fuel in enough volume for this? Hard to answer until you study if further I suppose.

[sprucebunny]

There are some gasifier power packs, now. Would one of them help
http://gekgasifier.com/gasification-store/gasifier-genset-skids/

[Norm]

I don't know what your average wind speeds are for your area but have you thought about a wind generator. We have a local JD dealer that's selling a couple of different models. I'm waiting for a report back on those that have them for a year or so to see if they are feasible for our farm.

http://www.vanwall.com/wind-energy

[Kansas]

That gasification unit sure holds potential. That may be a better way to go than a steam fired turbine. I imagine we are fairly limited to how much electricity we can generate, simply because I don't know how much we can put back in the lines when we don't need it.

Norm, I checked into wind. I just can't see a financial payback. Not saying it wouldn't eventually pay for itself, but its a long process. When I talked to the guy at the REA, he flat said using the wood waste might well work, but solar and wind just don't work out well. That is why they had some interest in this project.

A couple of things that I have found looking around. Most of what I have found have been outside this country. But I'm still looking. I don't even know enough about all this yet to be dangerous. But I am beginning to get a rough idea about what I want. I think a gasification unit running a generator would be the best. And I would really like to use our Portage and Main gasification unit, if possible, or even have a second unit just dedicated to producing electricity. If we are at 18000 a year in electric costs, and all the free fuel we can use, it seems to have potential for making financial sense. The one thing I keep running into is most use chips instead of firewood. The Gek is a good example, but I don't know why you couldn't run that off of the gas on our unit. Chips would be fine if I was grinding pallets or dry wood waste, but that isn't what we are doing. We have thousands of cubic yards of wood waste that is dry and could be used all piled up. Why go to the expense of grinding it up? Might also kind of get the county fire marshal in a better mood.

I want to find a way to make this work. We got some MacGyver type guys at the mill that can figure out about anything.

[two tired]

i have often thought of the same thing, there is about 10 small mills in the area that have a problem getting rid of slabs, wood waste, especially with the dry conditions and the burn ban. would be great to put this resorce to good use.

[pineywoods]

I've spent a lot of time researching this subject. In most cases the payback on wind and solar is NEVER. Only makes sense in special cases. A wood fired boiler making steam to run a turbine is impractical for a small installation, for several reasons, some of them legal. The only practical applications I have found involve woodgas in one way or another. A woodgas generator driving a conventional internal combustion engine coupled to an electrical generator is do-able with back yard technology. Just look at the wood burning trucks of Ron, Paul_H, and Wayne Kieth. The devil is in the details. A charge of wood fuel is only good for and hour or so of running. Then you have to shut it down to add more wood. I did find an article detailing a very large woodgas plant that ran continuously. I think it was somewhere in Maylasia. Back in the late 1800's many cities had gas street lights. They burned what was called coal gas, which is essentially the same as woodgas, just from coal instead of wood. A little research on coal gas might turn up some useful information. 


To sell power back to the grid, the local generator has to be syncronized exactly with the grid. Usually involves a bunch of very expensive electronics.

[Al_Smith]

Late 1880's early 1900's the large users of electical power  had no other choice than to produce their own electricity  . The big steel mills in Pittsburg,Gary Indiana etc used more power than the local provider was capable of .

Companys such as Allis-Chalmers for one made huge horizontal engne patterened after the famous Corliss steam engine that were powered using the waste gasses emitted from the smelting of metal which used coke in the open hearth furnaces .They were using a fuel which otherwise would just be vented off to stink up the town,which it did anyway,power or not .

At any rate after a period of time it became  as it is today more economical to purchase the power from the power company and those methods were abadoned .Fact the place I worked after I got out of high school in the mid 60's had a power house that had not generated power for over 30 years at that time .

In the case I mentioned with Hoge lumber,that is a large mill and shop complex .They produce enough power for the industrial needs plus the town of New Knoxville and still sell the excess .Keep in mind this is modern state of the art installation and cost in the millons to build .

It's not to say the idea of a co generation plant is a bad idea because it isn't .It's more the intial cost of installation plus the upkeep is a very expense undertaking .Then you have to deal with the EPA or whatever governmental group is in that praticular country .

[SwampDonkey]

There are still some smelters in Canada still producing their own power as well as pulp mills that produce most of there own as well. Alcan Aluminum in Kitimat, BC has it's own hydroelectric power. If it weren't for that it wouldn't be there at all. I got that explained to me from people that run the place. It's in a remote part of the country with a deep sea port. Alcan is also doing the same up on the Chicoutimi River in Quebec and have a port on Saqueny River at Le Bay with their own rail line. It's a very deep river that dumps into the St Lawrence. They ship aluminum ingots out of there.

[Warren]

What is the price break on Electric from the grid versus generating your own using LP/Natural gas firing an internal combustion engine that drives a genset ?  20 years ago, the paper mill I worked at used natural gas to fire a turbine (basically a GE jet engine) to generate electric for the paper mill.  Was cheaper than paying peak demand for local electric utility.

Using LP/Natural gas does not take advantage of the available (free) wood waste. However, some combination of wood gasification in tandem with LP/Natural gas to smooth out peaks and drops of the gasification unit might be feasible...

Warren

[Al_Smith]

I suppose it just depends on the situation .Like in the middle of nowhere in Canada where the hoot owls romance the chickens it would make sense they lack the power to run an aluminum plant .

Some years back the trade publication of the compresser division of Ingersall rand had a piece on a glass plant in Tenn. Interestingly  that publcation was named "compressed air "

That plant installed a huge MAN marine engine and a large generator and it proved to be cost efficient .Keep in mind though that the big diesel ran on bunker oil .They also captured the heat from the exhaust plus the recirc cooling water and utiilised the heat from it .If I recall they said the pay back time was about 7 years .The old rule of thumb used to be if an invesment makes it's money back within 7 years it's a very sound investment .I imagine that has changed by now .

[Kansas]

I am getting more and more determined to find a way to make this work. Dunno if I can, but I am gonna try.

[Ianab]

From Sprucebunny's link



They do a complete 20kw unit on a pallet for $25,000. Pour your wood chips in the hopper and start making power.

Is that the sort of thing you are envisioning? The $25K is for all new equipment, should be able to refit a 2nd hand genset for much less.

Ian

[shelbycharger400]

when you add up the cost of a boiler constructed, turbine and everything else...welding, pipe fitters...State Inspectors ect..    where do you draw the line, and cut the check.