Biomass fuelled combined heat and power plant on Læsø, phase 2

The aim of the present survey has been to identify the most advantageous biomass energy solution for the island of Læsø, located in Denmark. In the major town at Læsø, named Byrum, the community has already gathered many years of operation experience with a district heating network where heat is supplied by a forest wood chip hot water boiler. In the survey, priority has been given to energy solutions where sustainable utilization of excess wood from the local forest areas provides a high degree of local supply of district heating and electrical power. Initially, different commercial small-scale technologies for combined heat and power production CHP was selected and analyzed. The selected small-scale CHP technologies count steam turbine plants and gasification plants. A number of potentially localities for expansion of the district heating networks at Læsø have been pointed out. For each individual locality, the demand for domestic heating has been analyzed in details. Accordingly, several energy supply solutions was set up by making combinations of the models for CHP technologies with the models for potentially localities for district heating. This step was followed by a selection of the most prosperous solutions. For these solutions, detailed calculations of operating perforrnance and economical figures for revenue and operating expenses for the plant models were made. Despite the pre-selection of only the most promising energy solutions, the analyses and comparison of the chosen energy supply solution have revealed, that none of them are capable to turn out with an economically beneficial result. With the applied set of assumption it is evident that substantially economical subsidies and/or improved technical and financial conditions are mandatory. These objectives must be accomplished before CHP production based at local sustainable energy sources in a remote community as the island of Læsø can be implemented