07 Alternative energy sources (bioconversion energy)

05•02579 Transmission of prices and price volatility in layer Perceptron (MLP) is presented. A unique MLP for many
Australian electricity spot markets: a multivariate GARCH locations of Spain has been trained and after the training, the MLP
analysis is able to generate LOLP curves for any value and location.
Worthington, A. et al. Energy Economics, 2005, 27, (2), 337-350.
This paper examines the transmission of spot electricity prices and
price volatility among the five regional electricity markets in the 05/02582 Behaviour of gaseous chlorine and alkali metals
Australian National Electricity Market: namely, New South Wales, during biomass thermal utilisation
Queensland, South Australia, the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Wei, X. et al. Fuel, 2005, 84, (7-8), 841-848.
Scheme and Victoria. A multivariate generalized autoregressive The behaviour of gaseous chlorine and alkali metals of three sorts of
conditional heteroskedasticity model is used to identify the source biomass (Danish straw, Swedish wood, and sewage sludge) in
and magnitude of price and price volatility spillovers. The results combustion or gasification is investigated by the chemical equilibrium
indicate the presence of positive own mean spillovers in only a small calculating tool. The ranges of temperature, air-to-fuel ratio, and
number of markets and no mean spillovers between any of the markets. pressure are varied widely in the calculations (T = 400-1800 K, l = 0-
This appears to be directly related to the physical transfer limitations of 1.8, and P = 0.1-2.0 MPa). Results show that the air excess coefficient
the present system of regional interconnection. Nevertheless, the large only has less significant influence on the release of gaseous chlorine and
number of significant own-volatility and cross-volatility spillovers in all potassium or sodium during combustion. However, in biomass
five markets indicates the presence of strong autoregressive conditional gasification, the influence of the air excess coefficient is very
heteroskedasticity and generalized antoregressive conditional hetero- significant. Increasing air excess coefficient enhances the release of
skedasticity effects. This indicates that shocks in some markets will HCI(g), KOH(g), or NaOH(g) as well as it reduces the formation of
affect price volatility in others. Finally, and contrary to evidence from KCI(g), NaCl(g), K(g), or Na(g). In biomass combustion or straw and
studies in North American electricity markets, the results also indicate sludge gasification, increasing pressure enhances the release of HCI(g)
and reduces the amount of KCI(g), NaCl(g), KCI(g), or NaOH(g) at
that Australian electricity spot prices are stationary.
high temperatures. However, during wood gasification, the pressure
enhances the formation of KOH(g) and KCI(g) and reduces the release
05•02580 Village electrification technologies - an of K(g) and HCI(g) at high temperatures. During wood and sewage
evaluation of photovoltaic cells and compact fluorescent sludge pyrolysis, nitrogen addition enhances the formation of KCN(g)
lamps and their applicability in rural villages based on a and NaCN(g) and reduces the release of K(g) and Na(g). Kaolin
Tanzanian case study addition in straw combustion may enhance the formation of potassium
Gullberg, M. et al. Energy Policy, 2005, 33, (10), 1287-1298. aluminosilicate in ash and significantly reduces the release of KCI(g)
Electrification of remote sites in developing countries is often realized and KOH(g) and increases the formation of HCI(g).
trough diesel generator sets and an electric distribution network. This
was also the technology used in the village Urambo, where the first
rural eiectrifieation co-operative in Tanzania was started in 1994. 05/02583 Biodiesel production from high FFA rubber
Climate change however calls for decreased fossil fuel combustion seed oil
worldwide and new technologies have been further developed since the Ramadhas, A. S. et al. Fuel, 2005, 84, (4), 335 340.
erection of the diesel generator sets in Urambo. It is therefore not Currently, most of the biodiesel is produced from the refined/edible
obvious that electrification of other rural areas shall follow the Urambo type oils using methanol and an alkaline catalyst. However, large
example. In this article, the situation for 250 electricity consumers in amount of non-edible type oils and fats are available. The difficulty
Urambo will be demonstrated and the implications for them of with alkaline-esterification of these oils is that they often contain large
introducing new technologies will be evaluated. Technology options amounts of free fatty acids (FFA). These free fatty acids quickly react
regarded in the study are individual photovoltaic (PV) power systems with the alkaline catalyst to produce soaps that inhibit the separation of
and either incandescent lamps, tube lights or compact fluorescent the ester and glycerin. A two-step transesterification process is
lights (CFLs) supplied by diesel generation. The different options have developed to convert the high FFA oils to its mono-esters. The first
been evaluated with respect to consumer costs and environmental step, acid catalysed esterification reduces the FFA content of the oil to
impact. The results of the comparison show that PV generation is able less than 2%. The second step, alkaline catalysed transesterification
to compete with diesel generation if combined with incandescent process converts the products of the first step to its mono-esters and
lamps, but not when tube lights or CFLs are used in the conventional glycerol. The major factors affect the conversion efficiency of the
supply system. It should be noted, however, that while the diesel option process such as molar ratio, amount of catalyst, reaction temperature
offer financially more attractive solutions, individual PV systems do not and reaction duration is analysed. The two-step esterification pro-
result in any CO2 emissions. Furthermore, PV systems normally have a cedure converts rubber seed oil to its methyl esters. The viscosity of
higher reliability. However, since the diesel option is not only cheaper biodiesel oil is nearer to that of diesel and the calorific value is about
but also offers a wider range of energy services and facilitates, future 14% less than that of diesel. The important properties of biodiesel such
connection to the national electric grid, the conclusion is that this is as specific gravity, flash point, cloud point and pour point are found out
preferable before individual PV systems for communities similar to and compared with that of diesel. This study supports the production of
Urambo, if the consumers shall pay the full cost of the service. biodiesel from unrefined rubber seed oil as a viable alternative to the
diesel fuel.

05•02584 Diesel emissions from biofuels derived from

Spanish potential vegetable oils
Lapuerta, M. et al. Fuel, 2005, 84, (6), 773-780.
Methyl esters obtained from the most interesting Spanish oleaginous
07 ALTERNATIVE ENERGY crops for energy use - sunflower and Cynara cardunculus - were both
used as diesel fuels, pure and in 25% blends with a commercial fuel
SOURCES which was also used pure. A stationary engine test bed, together with
the instrumentation for chemical and morphological analysis, allowed
to study the effect of these fuels on the engine emissions, soluble
organic fraction of the particulate matter, origin of adsorbed
hydrocarbons, sulphate content, particle nmnber per unit filter surface,
Bioconversion energy and mean particle diameter. Both the consideration of the thermo-
chemical properties of the tested fuels and the computations of a
chemical equilibrium model were helpful for the results analysis. These
results proved that the use of these vegetable esters provides a
05/02581 A new approach for sizing stand alone significant reduction on particulate emissions, mainly due to reduced
photovoitaic systems based in neural networks soot and sulphate formation. On the contrary, no increases in NO,.
Hontoria, H. et al. Solar Energy, 2005, 78, (2), 313-319. emissions nor reductions on mean particle size were found.
Several methods for sizing stand-alone photovoltaic (pv) systems has
been developed. The more simplistic are called intuitive methods. They
are a useful tool for a first approach in sizing stand-alone photovoltaic 05•02585 Effect of swirling flow on fluidized bed drying of
systems. Nevertheless they are very inaccurate. Analytical methods use wheat grains
equations to describe the pv system size as a function of reliability. (3zbey, M. and S6ylemez, M. S. Energy Conversion and Management,
These ones are more accurate than the previous ones but they are also 2005, 46, (9-10), 1495-1512.
not accurate enough for sizing of high reliability. In a third group there In this paper, batch drying of wheat grains in a fluidized bed dryer,
are methods that use system simulations. These ones are called which had a swirling flow field in its drying medium, was experimentally
numerical methods. Many of the analytical methods employ the investigated. In the experiments, a laboratory scaled fluidized bed type
concept of reliability of the system or the complementary term: loss dryer was used. The effects of the swirling flow field on the drying
of load probability (LOLP). In this paper an improvement for performance were investigated by using an axial guide vane type swirl
obtaining LOLP curves based on the neural network called Multi- generator. The effects of the mass flow rate and temperature of the air

378 Fuel and Energy Abstracts November 2005