Energy and economic assessment of a polygeneration district heating and cooling system based on gasification of refuse derived fuels

Conventional district heating and cooling (DHC) systems are compelled to reduce their fossil fuel dependency while ensuring profitability as cooling and heating demands decline. One solution is to retrofit the system with a gasifier and product gas upgrading equipment so that the system will be able to diversify its fuel input, including biomass and waste resources, while simultaneously producing synthetic natural gas (SNG), synthetic gas (syngas) and char complementarily to heat, cold and electricity. The main objective of this study is to assess energetically and economically a polygeneration DHC system based on gasification of refuse derived fuels considering the following sub-product scenarios: char; char and syngas; char and SNG; and char, syngas and SNG. The results show that when char is the only sub-product of the modified DHC system, the investment payback is 3 years, the discounted net cash flow (DNCF) is 142 mln USD, and the system trigeneration efficiency is 83.6%. When other sub-products are supplied by the system, its performance reduces but the system DNCF increases, while the investment payback remains constant.