Biomass in the generation of electricity in Portugal: A review

The quality and composition of biomass as used in Portugal's thermal power plants is highly variable. The biomass consists mainly of residual forest biomass derived from forestry operations and wood waste from industrial processes, in particular paper and pulp industry. Its quality and composition is influenced by the presence of moisture and inert fragments, the latter being incorporated during collection or as a consequence of adherence to the biomass prior to collection. This variability presents difficulties for the thermal power plants; besides being an additional operational cost, the presence of large amounts of water and inerts in biomass used as a fuel, can result in problems related to the instability of the combustion and the accumulation of ash or rock that have to be removed and discarded. The objective of this paper is to review the main parameters that influence the quality of biomass, while analysing the current state-of-the-art power generation from the biomass sector in Portugal, as a new contribution to earlier studies.