State-of-the-Art of Small Scale Biomass Gasifiers in the Region of South Tyrol

Small scale biomass gasification has been a technological option that has raised a lot of interest during the last years in Europe. Alongside the growth in market share, we also observe new optimized technologies that are applied. The scope of this paper is to describe and analyze the most advanced and innovative technological advancements that have been monitored and analyzed from Free University of Bolzano in the area of South Tyrol. Since the year 2010 a rapid growth in the development of small scale gasification units has been observed mainly due the increased feed-in tariffs and the fact that forestry and agriculture have been main pillars of the local economy in South Tyrol. The monitoring has been performed in agreement with the test methodology proposed by the “Raccomandazione CTI 13” standard, i.e., a guideline about the contracting and commissioning of gasification systems recently published by the Italian Thermotechnical Committee Energy and Environment and is presented in detail in the framework of this paper. The monitoring activity has been the basis for the thermodynamic analysis in order to assess the potential and limitations of these energy systems. The outcomes imply that the small scale gasifiers that have gained market share have three main characteristics: significant level of automation, modular structure and are based on patents/specific designs. The latter makes the considered technologies dependent on the specific input and thus, not able to utilize a wider spectrum of the available biomass.