Wood Burning Indirectly Heated Gas Turbine/Cogeneration System for Use in the Pulp and Paper Industry

The gas turbine or Brayton cycle offers many advantages over a conventional power plant, especially when installed in a cogeneration mode. These advantages include physically compact packages, high reliability, improved system economics and full operating flexibility to meet variable electrical/steam demand. Until recently, the primary disadvantage of the gas turbine cycle has been that internal burning of dirty fuels caused unacceptable erosion and corrosion of turbine blading. In the simple cycle gas turbine modified for indirect heating, the compressor discharge air passes through the tube side of a heat exchanger before passing on to the turbine. Heat is transferred to the air via the combustion products of alternative fuels passing through the shell side of the heat exchanger. This paper discusses the potential of the indirectly heated gas turbine burning wood in a cogeneration configuration with a back-pressure steam turbine.