Biomass IGCC at Värnamo, Sweden - Past and Future

The plant at Varnamo feeds about 6 MW electricity to the grid, as well as 9 MW heat to the district heating system in the city of Varnamo, from a total fuel input equivalent to 18 MW. The plant is an important step forward in developing highly efficient and environmentally acceptable technologies based on biomass fuels. The accumulated operating experience per 1999 amounts to about 8 500 hours of gasification runs and about 3 600 hours of operation as a fully integrated plant. The test runs have been very successful and the plant has been operated on different wood fuels as well as straw and RDF.