Fuel Supply Investigation for an Externally Fired Microturbine based Micro CHP System : Case study on a selected site in Bishoftu, Ethiopia

Abstract: Sudden change on earth’s climate, which is a result of an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, is mainlycaused by burning of fossil fuels for various energy services. However, for the energy services to befavourable to the environment, there should be a balance with the environmental protection, and we cancall that “Sustainable Innovative Development”. “EXPLORE Polygeneration” initiative will serve as an important tool to promote the application ofrenewable technologies extending to the future sustainable energy engineering field. This paper is intendedin investigating a suitable fuel supply for the microturbine based micro CHP system available at theDivision of Heat and Power Technology, KTH, Sweden; for a site called “Alema Farm PLC”, Bishoftu,Ethiopia. Though there is a large biomass energy resource and a huge potential to produce hydroelectric power inEthiopia, the modern energy sector is very small and the energy system is mainly characterized by biomassfuel supplies and household energy consumption. The nation’s limited biomass energy resource is believedto have been depleting at an increasingly faster rate. Of the many and surplus amount of renewable energy resources available in and around Alema FarmPLC, poultry litter and pig’s manure are selected to be the two main energy sources for the CHP systemavailable in the lab, after passing through different conversion techniques. However, after consideringsome basic properties like: Energy content and Bulk Density of the fuel, Moisture content , Ashcharacteristic, Tar content, Fuel logistics, Local storage, Fuel feeder system, and Magnitude of GHGReduction; poultry litter is found to be the most convenient to produce a syngas with a Downdraftatmospheric gasifier available in the HPT lab. Finally, For the problems caused by the nature of the poultry litter by itself and the methods used in theconversion process, the 40 TRIZ principles of TRIZ inventive principles is used and some major pointsare recommended.