Energy Production from Pellet Fuel

The pellets fuel are a modern form of densified biomass offering interesting opportunities for development of Renewable Energy in Indonesia, consisting of wood pellets and biomass pellets. Wood pellets derived from wood and biomass pellets derived from biomass such as agricultural wastes and plantations such as oil palm empty fruit bunches. Pellet fuel that be produced could have a large variation in quality because of the raw materials and production technologies. Technology for pellet fuel utilization in thermal route for energy production which is burning and gasification has been applied.

The production of energy from pellets fuel in the form of heat and electricity. Heating with pellets fuel is normally quite simple and the need for inspection and care of the burner and boiler is often limited. However, combustion problems can arise e.g. if the amount of ash increases causing the system to slag and the efficiency to decrease. These problems are often caused by the low quality of pellets fuel or by wrong choice of the plant or system settings.

Calorific value, ash content, ash chemistry, moisture content, dimension and density pellets are several important parameters of pellet fuel. Preference type of pellet fuel will determine the combustion technology. Currently available equipments to burn pellets fuel from the household scale (pellet stove), medium scale up to production of heat and electricity for large scale up to tens of megawatts (MW). Equipment or systems are generally equipped with air regulation valves either primary or secondary and even tertiary to optimize the combustion process is done. Setting the correct operation make the system work optimally match to the specification.