Coal and Biomass Co-firing at Aurora Power Continued
Working with Dave Nicholls of the USDA Forest Service, Daisy Huang is again at Aurora Power this week to aide in a coal/biomass co-firing exercise. Similar to the work undertaken this past March, Daisy and Dave have been mixing woody biomass material into the standard coal fuel that the Aurora Power Plant burns for fuel. During a previous experiment conducted in March 2015, coal was mixed with processed wood chips that serve as feedstock for manufacturing wood pellets and the mixed fuel was used by the Aurora Power Plant to measure the effect on plant efficiency and emissions. This time the coal was mixed with what is considered to be wood scraps. This study is being undertaken at 5% and 15% to see how well the scrap type of biomass performs. The woody biomass used in March and again this week were sourced from Superior Pellet Fuels located in North Pole, AVÀÇÂÛ̳.
To read the ATW post from the last portion of the co-firing study, visit ACEP’s ATW section.
LEFT: wood scraps before reground for testing. RIGHT: scraps are reground to testing size. Photo credit D. Huang, ACEP/UAF.