Simulation of a small-scale electricity generation system from biomass gasification

Abstract

The following work has been developed in the scope of the cooperation project called Pôle Goundi. This project, coordinated by the NGO Misión y Desarrollo para Goundi, with the collaboration of the technology transfer centre CITCEA-UPC and the support of the CCD-UPC, aims to electrify Goundi, a village located in the South of Chad. In this sense, the construction of a small-scale biomass gasification power plant is planned. Since the installation of the power plant will be done by stages, the first step is to demonstrate its viability by installing and operating the first 20kW of electrical power. For this, a complete commercial solution, mainly consisting of a multi-stage gasifier, an internal combustion engine and a synchronous generator, has been selected. Then, it has been modelled with Cycle-Tempo® and Matlab® simulation tools in order to analyze its operating parameters and performance. After a brief introduction about the aims and the scope of the project, this paper will proceed with a more detailed description of the system and the model and it will present some of the obtained results.