6.1 Historical background of the gasifier installations
6.2 Wood-fuel supply and preparation
6.3 Description of the down-draught gasifiers
6.4 Electricity production with the gas engine alternator sets
6.5 Operating experiences
6.6 Profitability of using wood gas at Loma Plata
In Loma Plata in the Chaco region of Paraguay, the German company Imbert installed-in 1983 a 1.4 MW power plant fuelled by wood-gas. Originally the plant consisted of two down-draught gasifiers, with a nominal gas-production capacity of 1800 m³/h each, but in October 1985 was-equipped with a third gasifier of local design and manufacture. The gasifiers feed three Waukesha L7042 G gas-engine-alternator sets, with a generating capacity of 420 kVA each. The power plant supplies a private agricultural cooperative of small-scale industries, bakeries, dairies, schools and some 1,500 families with electricity.
Up till now (February 1986) the first two gasifiers have been in-operation for more than two years and the third for more than three months. The power-plant has been working without major problems and enabled the cooperative to develop and improve its economy through lower energy costs, increased electricity supply and new jobs.
The-average wood-fuel consumption per produced kWh electricity has been 1.9 kg/kWh, with a fuel cost of 2.9 G/kg, compared to the cost of diesel oil, which has risen from 72 G/l in January 1984 to 127 G/l in December 1984.
In the following sections a more detailed description of the power-plant, the wood fuel preparation and the electricity production costs, as reported by Sonnenberg & al. (37) and Cañete (9), are presented.
A schematic layout of the Loma Plata power plant is shown in Figure 6.1.
