Technical Barriers for Biomass Co-Firing Identified During the First Two Years of Biomass Co-Firing in Poland

Biomass co-firing has become a significant player on the market of renewable energy in Poland through the last two years. Power producers after a few years of co- firing biomass have already identified some technical barriers limiting the biomass share in the combusted fuel blend. These limitations were mostly caused by the existing coal feeding system properties but also a group of them was a consequence of biomass chemical composition different from coal or lignite. The paper presents the identification of the most common technical barriers due to biomass co- firing reported in Polish power plants. Presented results are mostly based on biomass co-firing trial tests and full-time operational observations carried out by the plants themselves and in some cases evaluated by Institute for Chemical Processing of Coal who was the technical advisor at the co-firing process implementation.