Andres Siirde

Methodological Approach to Determining the Effect of Parallel Energy Consumption on District Heating System

Abstract District heating (DH) offers the most effective way to enhance the efficiency of primary energy use, increasing the share of renewable energy in energy consumption and decreasing the amount of CO2 emissions. According to Article 9 section 1 of the Directive 2010/31/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 May 2010 on the energy performance of buildings, the Member states of the European Union are obligated to draw up National Plans for increasing the number of nearly zero-energy buildings [1]. Article 2 section 2 of the same Directive states that the energy used in nearly zero-energy buildings should be created covered to a very significant extent by energy from renewable sources, including energy from renewable sources produced on-site or nearby. Thus, the heat distributed by DH systems and produced by manufacturing devices located in close vicinity of the building also have to be taken into account in determining the energy consumption of the building and the share of renewable energy used in the nearly zero-energy buildings. With regard to the spreading of nearly zero-energy and zero-energy houses, the feasibility of on-site energy (heat and/or electricity) production and consumption in DH areas energy (i.e. parallel consumption, when the consumer, connected to DH system, consumes energy for heat production from other sources besides the DH system as well) needs to be examined. In order to do that, it is necessary to implement a versatile methodological approach based on the principles discussed in this article.

Efficiency Assessment of Support Mechanisms for Wood-Fired Cogeneration Development in Estonia

Efficiency Assessment of Support Mechanisms for Wood-Fired Cogeneration Development in Estonia There are various support mechanisms for wood-fired cogeneration plants, which include both support for cogeneration development and stimulation for increasing consumption of renewable energy sources. The efficiency of these mechanisms is analysed in the paper. Overview of cogeneration development in Estonia is given with the focus on wood-fired cogeneration. Legislation acts and amendments, related to cogeneration support schemes, were described. For evaluating the efficiency of support mechanisms an indicator - fuel cost factor was defined. This indicator includes the costs related to the chosen fuel influence on the final electricity generation costs without any support mechanisms. The wood fuel cost factors were compared with the fuel cost factors for peat and oil shale. For calculating the fuel cost factors, various data sources were used. The fuel prices data were based on the average cost of fuels in Estonia for the period from 2000 till 2008. The data about operating and maintenance costs, related to the fuel type in the case of comparing wood fuel and oil shale fuel were taken from the CHP Balti and Eesti reports. The data about operating and maintenance costs used for peat and wood fuel comparison were taken from the Tallinn Elektrijaam reports. As a result, the diagrams were built for comparing wood and its competitive fuels. The decision boundary lines were constructed on the diagram for the situation, when no support was provided for wood fuels and for the situations, when various support mechanisms were provided during the last 12 years.

Competitiveness of wood fuel in the conditions of open electricity market in Post-Kyoto period: Case study for Estonia

The goal of the paper was to evaluate competitiveness of wood fuel in comparison with oil shale taking into account Estonian renewable energy support policy, open electricity market and greenhouse gas emission allowance trading mechanisms. During the research the potential for electricity capacity and electricity production where wood is used as fuel, was calculated. The electricity production costs were evaluated for two possibilities of producing electricity from wood: for wood-fired cogeneration plants and for oil shale plants with oil shale and wood co-firing process. The options of wood utilisation were compared with the reference case when the electricity is produced using only one type of fuel - the oil shale.

Integrated Use of Fluidized Bed Technology for Oil Production from Oil Shale

The plant unit which consists of a fluidized bed retort and CFB furnace for burning the by-products of retorting (semicoke and semicoke gas) is presented in this paper. The oil shale retort consists of a fast fluidized bed shaft, coarse semicoke bit, semicoke separation chamber and cyclone for the separation of fine semicoke particles. The crashed oil shale and hot ash from the CFB ash separator are fed concurrently into the fast fluidized bed shaft. For fluidizing the mixture of oil shale and hot ash particles, the recycle semicoke gas is used. The pyrolysis of oil shale begins in fluidized bed and is completed in the semicoke separation chamber. The coarse semicoke particles are separated from fluidized bed directly while the medium size particles are separated from the gases in the semicoke separation chamber and the finest semicoke particles in the cyclone. All the fractions of semicoke from the fluidized bed retort and semicoke gas from the oil fractionator are burnt in the CFB furnace. The semicoke ash is separated from flue gases in the CFB ash separator. A part of separated hot ash is fed into the fluidized bed retort as a solid heat carrier material and the rest into the furnace through the ash cooler or separated from the process. The retention of sulphur dioxide formed during the semicoke and semicoke gas combustion, is guaranteed for about 99 % due to the high CaO content in the semicoke ash and convenient temperature (about 850°C) in the CFB furnace. The described plant unit is useful for retorting oil shale and other solid hydrocarbon-containing fuels. The advantages of the present retorting process and system are: improved oil yield, greater throughput, lower retorting time, avoidance of moving parts in the retorting zones, reduced downtime, etc. A new plant unit for oil shale oil production has been elaborated and defended by the Estonian Utility Model EE 200700671 UI.