Status of Using Biomass Gasification for Heat and Power in Thailand

Nowadays fossil fuel plays a significant role in the global energy supply and demand. Many non-oil producers and agricultural countries have set the target of biomass utilization as alternative energy in their energy policy plan. Gasification is one of the promising technologies in terms of the conversion of biomass to heat and power. However, this technology has faced many challenges, e.g. high capital cost, low energy conversion efficiency, etc. As the Thai government has promoted the use of biomass as alternative energy and has financially supported the use of agricultural residue for heat and power production in 12 pilot projects, this study will review the current status of the gasification technology used in the projects and discuss the results of a performance test conducted in terms of feedstock consumption rate, producer gas yield, heating value of producer gas, and thermal efficiency. The feedstock used consisted of residue from wood, corncob, palm, etc. Four projects used producer gas for electrical power generation with the capacity ranged from 250 to 300 kWe and 8 projects to produce heat for use in the ceramics industry, for fertilizer drying, hotels, etc. According to the study, it was seen that downdraft air gasification technology is suitable for small-scale heat and power production. The heating value of the producer gas ranged from 1.89 to 5.89 MJ/Nm3 and the maximum cold gas efficiency of 76.96% was able to be reached.