Whether one’s interest was in large-scale power generation or domestic scale or conventional coal-fired plant or gas turbines or renewable fuels, there was something of value at the recent British Flame meeting New and Usual Power Generation Processes.

Whilst presentations from E. ON Engineering and RWEnpower described the options for large-scale clean-coal generation and their development plans for new plant in the UK,  Expansion Energy Ltd and Cardiff University reviewed developments in gas turbine technology. The latter presentations covered CCGT system efficiency improvements along with the testing of gas turbine combustors.

The Bruce Boucher Consultancy and Sustainable Energy Ltd then presented the topic of developments in renewable fuels and sustainable technologies for commercial and industrial power generation.  (These include conventional combustion systems as well as gasification, both based on renewable energy sources.)

The TNEI presentation described novel commercial-scale power generation based on a hydrogen mini-grid system in which excess electricity from a wind turbine is used to generate hydrogen by electrolysis. The hydrogen can be used for transportation (the preferred option) or to generate electricity from a fuel cell.

Finally, two presentations from Cardiff and Leeds Universities discussed developments in the use of thermo-electric and mini-gas turbine / fuel cell hybrid systems, respectively.

Copies of the presentations are now available on the British Flame website at www.britishflame.org.uk.