Göteborg Energi has a surplus of district heating during spring, summer and fall. The heat surplus is due to a constant production of waste heat from oil refineries and heat from waste incineration over the year. It would be desirable to increase the demand for heat and the uptime for the newly built combined heat and power generation plant, Rya Kraftvärmeverk. One alternative could be to integrate Rya Kraftvärmeverk with a Pellet production facility. By producing heat, electricity and pellet in a joint process the energy use can be decreased.

As demand for renewable energy is increasing rapidly, the market for biomass pellets is expected to continue to grow in the near future. Most of the new raw materials that are discussed for Pellet production have one thing in common; the production costs will increase compared to using traditional raw materials such as sawdust and planer shavings. The aim of this thesis is to investigate to what degree increased use of new raw materials for Pellet production will affect the general pellet prices in Sweden and to survey what plans Swedish pellet producers have concerning new raw materials. To investigate the raw material situation of the Swedish pellet producers an industry survey was performed. Literature studies were also made on previous research in the subject field. Calculations of the production costs for pellets were done for the raw materials sawdust, wet sawmill chips and energy wood respectively. New raw materials are already used by the large-scale pellet producers in Sweden.

In this study, the effects of using fine milled cassava stems as an additive in biofuel Pellet production was compared to the effects of refined starch addition. The bulk biomass fuel raw material, to which the additive was added, was a blend of spruce and pine sawdust. An experimental design in the factors cassava/starch content, moisture content and material temperature was used. Measured responses were pellet bulk density, pellet durability, amount of fines, pelletizer motor current, pellet temperature, die temperature and CV for pelletizer motor current (a measure of process stability). Each response was modeled by multiple linear regression (MLR).

This thesis aims to examine the viability of various techniques for increased electricity generation in CHP plants and the effect of electricity price fluctuations on the profitability.The techniques examined are fuel dryer, Pellet production, methane production, combined methane- and Pellet production, seasonal heating storages in caverns and pit heat storages and condensing tail. Using Excel and Matlab, the prerequisites for investment costs, revenues and expenses were calculated.What affects the price of electricity is a combination of economic and technological development, energy prices, economic structure, population changes and weather. Different scenarios for the electricity price were therefore examined. In the base case, the electricity price was given by the Nord Pool electricity price statistics of area three in 2011. Thereafter, WiMo was used to design the electricity scenarios for 2030, which was then applied to the data to obtain the viability of various scenarios. The techniques examined were found to give greater profits to the CHP plant by increasing and optimizing the production of electricity.

In the last decade, member states of the European Union have adopted a range of measures to decrease the dependency on fossil fuels. This has led to an increased use of biomass in heat and power production. In some countries, the lack of forest resource has led to large scale power producers importing their biomass needs. Due to high energy content and homogeneity, wood pellets have become an internationally traded commodity used for large scale power production. The Baltic States have emerged as one of the largest wood pellet exporting regions in Europe.

Fuel pellets are a refined bio fuel mostly consisting of residues from sawmills and wood industry. At Rindi Västerdala AB's combined bio energy plant in Vansbro fuel pellets are produced, while the waste heat from the process is used for district heating. The pellets are produced from sawdust, wood shavings and dry wood chips that is dried, milled and pressed into small cylindrical rods. The advantage of refining the wood material in this manner is that the energy value is greater per unit volume and unit weight, thereby the cost of transportation per energy unit is reduced. Also, less storage space is needed.Pellet manufacturing is a complex process since many parameters affects the final results.

The global wood pellet market has seen a rapid growth after the adoption of the Kyoto protocol and the renewable energy incentives created within the European Union. The global consumption of wood pellets reached 13,5 million tonnes in 2010 and several experts estimate the consumption to be between 35-50 million tonnes by 2020. These forescasts raise the questions which regions that can supply this vast amount of wood pellets and what the conditions are for producing it. This study evaluates the conditions for wood Pellet production and export from British Columbia, on Canada?s west coast, focusing on existing industry structure, raw material supply and the distribution chain.

Denna studie handlar om pelletering som möjlig lönsam marginalaffär vid mindre sågverk/hyvlerier. Studien, vilken skett genom djupintervjuer på plats, omfattar fem olika mindre sågverk/hyvlerier i Småland. Verksamheterna är sinsemellan på många sätt olika men har samtliga satsat på pelletering av ekonomiska skäl och av miljöskäl.Studien visar att pelletering är lönsam men också att det krävs vissa förutsättningar för att långsiktigt nå denna lönsamhet. Den viktigaste är långsiktig tillgång till råvara i form av torrt spån men det krävs även ett genuint intresse och en stor kunskap inom såväl teknik som trä för den som skall pelletera Detta beror på att produktionsprocessen är mycket komplicerad och även beroende av en del yttre omständigheter som t.ex. fukt, kyla och torka.

The district heating load is seasonally dependent, with a low load during periods of high ambient temperature. Thermal energy storage (TES) has the potential to shift heating loads from winter to summer, thus reducing cost and environmental impact of District Heat production. In this study, a concept of high temperature borehole thermal energy storage (HT-BTES) together with a pellet heating plant for temperature boost, is presented and evaluated by its technical limitations, its ability to supply heat, its function within the district heating system, as well as its environmental impact and economic viability in Gothenburg, Sweden, a city with access to high quantities of waste heat.The concept has proven potentially environmentally friendly and potentially profitable if its design is balanced to achieve a good enough supply temperature from the HT-BTES. The size of the heat storage, the distance between boreholes and low borehole thermal resistance are key parameters to achieve high temperature. Profitability increases if a location with lower temperature demand, as well as risk of future shortage of supply, can be met.

Successful forest regeneration is a prerequisite for sustainable forest management. Therefore, it is important to prevent browsing damage on the commercially important tree species Scots pine. In this study I have tested a new alternative way to increase the available amount of forage and increase the use of these resources by especially moose. The method is based on a slash treatment at harvest, where the accessibility of slash as forage is increased during final felling or commercial thinning by gathering the slash and putting the Scots pine slash on top of the slash piles. This study has compared the availability of forage, the amount of browsed biomass and the number of fecal pellet groups between conventional and slash treated stands after final felling and commercial thinning in southern Sweden.

This thesis describes the new construction of a small house and it includes studies of three heating systems: geothermal heating, district heating and pellet. The purpose of this thesis is to project a small house which can manage Building Regulations, BBR conditions and then examine three possible heating systems for the small house. This thesis is a literature study which gives an understanding of the heating systems technical structure, properties and costs. An empirical study completes the literature study by giving a deeper understanding of district heating costs and pellet costs. The empirical study contains two interviews, one of which was conducted in a district heating corporation and the other interview was conducted in a pellet corporation.

This thesis describes the new construction of a small house and it includes studies of three heating systems: geothermal heating, district heating and pellet. The purpose of this thesis is to project a small house which can manage Building Regulations, BBR conditions and then examine three possible heating systems for the small house. This thesis is a literature study which gives an understanding of the heating systems technical structure, properties and costs. An empirical study completes the literature study by giving a deeper understanding of district heating costs and pellet costs. The empirical study contains two interviews, one of which was conducted in a district heating corporation and the other interview was conducted in a pellet corporation.

At SIA TallOil's pellets factory in Latvia wood shavings and saw dust are dried with flue gases from a gas burner. TallOil wants to replace the gas with a biofuel that is available at the pellet plant. The reason for this is the unstable gas market in Europe in combination with the fact that TallOil wants to improve its profile as supplier of renewable bio fuels. In this project the technical and economical possibilities for a fuel conversion to ether bark powder, wood shavings or wood powder have been investigated. These fuels should be burned in one of the following applications: TPS BioSwirl, VTS Multifuel burner or Saxlunds bio fuel combustion plant Due to the fact that the fuel alternatives available are relatively common except for bark powder, the work has mainly been focused on bark powder.

Lean Production is used by many manufacturing companies. Companies in process industries do not use Lean Production to the same extent today. This is part of the report's issue to explore how Lean Production can be applied to a company in the process industries.The investigated company is a processing company that manufactures various types of foil. The company wishes to streamline its production and has therefore asked the authors to examine if Lean Production can offer the company improvements in their production. Lean Production value stream mapping tool has been selected to identify and analyze the current state of two of its products in production.

Gunsta is situated about 10 km east of Uppsala. Today there are plans to establish 1000 new households in Gunsta before year 2030. The required energy for heating houses and water would be distributed via a district heating system, which also includes 200 existing residences. The annual required energy, according to this study, would be 16.2 GWh with a maximal peak effect of 6.9 MW. To meet this need, the study suggests a system with heat pumps to upgrade the 31?C water from a 1.8 kilometre deep borehole.