| The investments in units of electricity production from the renewable energy sources have an increasing trend in the European Union countries. The production of elec-tricity from renewable energy sources and cogeneration is promoted by various support mechanisms. The quota obli-gation system and tradable green certificates was imple-mented in Romania. In the case of biomass, the support scheme provides two green certificates for each MWh deli-vered to the public electricity network and additional one green certificate if the electricity is produced in high effi-ciency cogeneration. For cogeneration plants, demand for useful heat is the essential condition in the qualification of electricity production in high efficiency cogeneration. A solution to provide the demand for useful heat and compen-sation of load variations over time is the storage of thermal energy. The paper presents the technical and economic analysis of the heat storage systems integration for a coge-neration unit with organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and bio-mass fuel. The use of thermal energy storage in the heating network of the ORC unit may allow connection of new con-sumers without disrupting the operation of current consum-ers. The increased heat consumption delivered of the coge-neration unit will allow the qualify for a larger amount of electricity in high efficiency cogeneration. |
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