Self-regulated asynchronous cogeneration to enable micro-scale waste-to-energy biogas utilisation

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Methane-rich biogas produced as a waste-to-energy (WTE) by-product of organic effluenttreatment in anaerobic digesters and microbial fuel cells has potential to generate 30TWh ofelectricity. Yet, whilst combined heat/power units (CHP) based on dedicated industrial biogasengines currently recover energy from large-scale WTE and cogeneration (CG) technologies(250KWhe), the current size is not compatible with the waste/energy requirements of mostpotential users, meaning that only 1.6% of the available feedstock is being utilised.Micro-scale WTE technologies – which are uniquely aligned with these requirements – aretherefore predicted to dominate the market through widespread public and industrialapplication. However, despite uptake of micro-AD/MFC growing rapidly, there is nocommercial technology for biogas micro-CG due to a fundamental restriction on scalability ofsynchronous generator costs with reducing CHP size.Lindhurst Innovation Engineering aim to realise an enabling technology for a turn-key biogasmicro-CHP, by instead proving the technical feasibility of self-regulated asynchronousgeneration, allowing key expensive components for synchronisation to be omitted. Based on anovel framework for high power factor grid-linked induction, a dedicated micro-scale biogasengine and integrated scrubbing, the project targets a step change in enginedisplacement/electrical generation capacity, system complexity, cost, noise and maintenance.