Control analysis of biomass gasification with combined heat and power system

Abstract

A reduction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions and extensive demand for electricity has motivated cleaner power production. Renewable energy source from biomass features an alternative option for sustainable energy generation. Innovation in biomass gasification with combined heat and power (BG-CHP) system emerges as a potential technology to achieve and stimulate the Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG 11: Climate Change). Nevertheless, a major problem of BG-CHP is its bulkiness and inconvenient form of biomass along with the multifaceted process behavior. All these feature non-linearities as well as high process interactions, and therefore require a control advancement to ensure feasible and flexible operation. Two different types of controllers [viz, proportional, integral, and derivative controller (PID) and Model Predictive Controller (MPC)] are designed and evaluated to identify the best control system via set point tracking scenario. Embedment of MPC into palm kernel shell BG-CHP plant outperformed the performance of PID controller with minimal overshoot and precise set-point tracking. The findings obtained from this study are valuable in identifying the practicability of BG-CHP system as a sustainable and clean waste to energy (WtE) technology.