• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.595-625
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• 2012

Recently environment-friendly pellet boilers have interests as emissions of greenhouse gases are regulated internationally and energy security becomes more important to oil addicted countries including Republic of Korea. But the Korean market for pellet boilers is on the initial stage due to the high production costs relative to other conventional boilers. Hence the Korean government has supported financially and promoted the pellet boiler business. In this sense, it would contribute market stratergy and effective promotion policy for both of the government and private companies if we can forecast market shares of pellet boilers appropriately. For this purpose, this study surveyed potential consumers' preferences on pellet boilers among various alternatives using a choice experiment reflecting intangible costs. As the market share of new technology increases, intangible costs decline. According to different intangible cost scenarios, we experimented people's preferences on oil, gas, electric, and pellet boilers. A multinomial logit model was employed to estimate coefficient parameters of common attributes for various alternative boilers. Based on the estimates, we forecasted market shares of individual boilers. We found that as intangible costs decline, the market share of pellet boiler increase substantically while market shares of electric and gas boilers decrease dramatically. The market share of oil boiler did not change significantly. Meanwhile, as people are more rich, more educated, and exposed to advertisement on pellet boilers, the likelihood of choosing the pellet boiler increases.

• Journal of Applied Reliability
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.31-44
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• 2013

Recently, due to the high rise of energy costs and environmental problem issues, much attention has been paid to wood pellets. Wood pellets are produced by compressing woody biomass into cylindrical form. Wood pellets are suitable for use at various scales in industrial furnaces for heat production to replace conventional fossil fuel energy sources since the use of wood pellet that is carbon neutral can alleviate global warming. This study presents the result of developing two industrial wood pellet boilers with high safety having capacities of 290kW and 440kW. Efficiency has been improved by using a rotating screw bar grate burner. Special attention has been paid to the improvement of the safety of the wood pellet boilers from backfire by adopting a triple protecting system composed of a rotary feeder, an air curtain, and a backfire protecting DC-fan.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.597-609
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• 2018

Korea Forest Service has supplied 76 industrial wood pellet boilers from 2011 to 2015 through subsidy programs. Since carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen oxides ($NO_x$) generated during boiler combustion are substances that lead to death in the case of acute poisoning, it is very important to reduce emissions. Therefore, the CO and $NO_x$ emission values of 63 boilers excluding the hot air blower and some boilers initially supplied were analyzed. The emission factor was also calculated from the measured exhaust gas concentration (based on exhaust gas $O_2$ concentration of 12%). The average value of CO emitted from industrial wood pellet boilers was 49 ppm and it was confirmed that the CO concentration was decreasing as the years passed. The emission factor of CO was 0.73 g/kg. The average value of $NO_x$ emitted from industrial wood pellet boilers was 67 ppm and the emission factor of $NO_x$ was 1.63 g/kg. Unlike CO, there was no tendency to decrease according to the installation year. Both CO and $NO_x$ measurements met the limits of the Ministry of Environment. These $NO_x$ emission factors were compared with the $NO_x$ emission factors produced by certified low $NO_x$ burners. The $NO_x$ emission factor of industrial wood pellet boilers was about 1.9 times that of certified low $NO_x$ LNG combustors and about 0.92 times that of coal combustion.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.103.1-103.1
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• 2010

Recently domestic wood pellet boilers are installed in rural and forestry houses. The fuel price per lower heating value of wood pellet is about 20 % lower than that of heating oil on July 2010. In spite of lower price of wood pellet, a few user of wood pellet boiler complain expensive fuel cost. One of this reason is inaccurate or improper air-fuel ratio setting of wood pellet boiler. O2 concentration of flue gas of domestic wood pellet boiler is about 9.7 % and there are few domestic wood pellet boiler which can control air-fuel ratio automatically. We tested a domestic wood pellet boiler in changing boiler thermal output and air-fuel ratio. The nominal boiler thermal output is 25 kW (21 500 kcal/h). We measured thermal efficiency and flue gas concentrations such as CO and NOx at each boiler thermal load with various air-fuel ratio. The results show that if air flow rate is the same as full load and part load, thermal efficiency of part load of 40 % drops about 7.7 %p compared to boiler full load case.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.15-22
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• 2014

This paper presents the implementation of a control system of pellet boiler using wood pellet as carbon neutral material. The system also has the additional features to provide remote controlling and monitoring based on home networking technology through either public switched telephone networks or mobile communication networks. It consists of three kinds of sub-modules; a main controller provides basic and additional features such as a setting of temperature, a supplying of wood pellet, a controlling of ignition and fire-power, and a removing of soot. The second is temperature controller of individual rooms which is connected to the main controller through RS-485 links. And interface modules with PSTN and mobile networks can support remote controlling and monitoring the functions. The test results under the heating area of $172m^2$ show a thermal efficiency of 93.6%, a heating power of 20,640kcal/hr, and a fuel consumption of 5.54kg/hr. These results are superior to those of the conventional pellet boilers. In order to obtain the such high performance, we newly applied a 3-step ignition flow, a flame detection by $C_dS$ sensor, and a fire-power control by fine controlling of shutter to our pellet boiler.

• Proceedings of the Korea Forestry Energy Research Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.88-89
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• 2011

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.553-558
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• 2010

To solve the problems of the low combustion activity of Korean anthracite and the abundant loss of unburned carbon in fly ash, pellet coal was fabricated from coal fines and fly ash, and the mixed combustion of coarse coal with the pellet coal was examined in the circulating fluidized bed combustor of a 0.1 MW scale test unit. In the combustion of the raw coal only, the significant amount of coal fines was entrained, resulting in overheat at the top of the combustor. With the coarse coal that most fines were eliminated, however, the combustion temperature was maintained stable. The mixed combustion of coarse and raw coals was also feasible even though it often went unstable. The mixed combustion of the coarse coal with the pellet coal was as stable as the coarse coal combustion, showing a promise that the combustion of the Korean anthracite in commercial circulating fluidized bed boilers could be further enhanced.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.264-269
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• 2013

Purpose: This study was carried out to develop a classification index and grade levels to rate agricultural heaters for energy efficiency classification. Methods: The classification index was developed mainly by taking simplicity of calculation and easy access to relevant data into consideration. The grade levels were developed on the basis of a 5-grade classification system in which graded heaters are to be normally distributed over the grades. The value of each grade level were determined in terms of the classification index values calculated using the published performance data of agricultural heaters tested at the FACT in Korea over the past 12 years. Results: The thermal efficiency of agricultural heaters based on the enthalpy method was proposed as a reasonable classification index. The grade levels were proposed in equation form for three types of agricultural heaters: fossil fuel heaters, wood pellet heaters and wood pellet boilers. A reasonable energy efficiency classification of agricultural heaters could be performed using the proposed classification index and grade levels. Conclusions: It is expected that energy saving programs will be extended to agricultural machines in the near future. The classification index and grade levels to rate agricultural heaters for energy efficiency classification were developed and proposed for such near future to come.

• 한국연소학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2013.06a
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• pp.19-20
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• 2013

The cofiring of renewable fuel in coal fired boilers is an attractive option to mitigate $CO_2$ emissions, since it is relatively low cost option for efficiently converting renewable fuel to electricity by adding biomass as partial substitute of coal. However, it would lead to reduce plant efficiency and flexibility in operation, and increase operation cost and capital cost associated with renewable fuels handling and firing equipment. The aim of this study is to investigate reduction of carbon dioxide at varying percentage of biomass in fuel blend to the boiler biomass, and estimate operation and capital cost. Wood pellet, PKS (palm kernel shell), EFB (empty fruit bunch) and sludge are considered as a renewable fuels for a cofiring with coal. Several approaches by the cofiring ratio are chosen from past plant demonstrations and commercial cofiring operation, and they are evaluated and discussed for CO2 reduction and cost estimation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Combustion
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.14-22
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• 2017

Co-firing of renewable fuel in coal fired boilers is an attractive option to mitigate $CO_2$ emissions, since it is a relatively low cost option for efficiently converting renewable fuel to electricity by adding biomass as partial substitute of coal. However, it would cause reducing plant efficiency and operational flexibility, and increasing operation and capital cost associated with handling and firing equipment of renewable fuels. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of biomass co-firing on $CO_2$ emission and capital/operating cost. Wood pellet, PKS (palm kernel shell), EFB (empty fruit bunch) and sludge are considered as renewable fuels for co-firing with coal. Several approaches by the co-firing ratio are chosen from previous plant demonstrations and commercial co-firing operation, and they are evaluated and discussed for $CO_2$ reduction and cost estimation.