IEA TCP Combustion GECT Leader

• Unité de recherche: OFEN
• Numéro de projet: SI/501584

Mots-clé (Anglais)

IC Engine, gaseous fuels, national and international collaboration, dissemination of results

Description succincte (Allemand)

Dieses Projekt beinhaltet alle Arbeiten des Operating Agent des Gas Engine Collaborative Task im Technology Collaboration Programme "clean and efficient combustion" der International Energy Agency: Weiterentwicklung des Tasks hinsichtlich vermehrter Zusammenarbeit der members, Steigerung Visibilität des Tasks inner-/ausserhalb der IEA, IEA Reporting sowie Organisation/Moderierung der Gas Engine Session und workshops am TLM.

Description succincte (Anglais)

Within this project, all activities relating to the Gas Engine Collaborative Task – within the Technology Collaboration Programme "clean and efficient combustion" of the International Energy Agency – are coordinated, including: further development of the task w.r.t. collaboration between members; improving visibility of the Task; IEA reporting; organization of gas engine sessions and workshops at the TLM.

Rapport final (Anglais)

Since the establishment of the Gas Engine Collaborative Task (GECT) at the 35th IEA Task Leader Meeting (TLM) in San Francisco, the main goal of the task is to establish and improve collaborations among task member and to coordinate all reporting activities at the task level for subsequent consolidation via the Executive Committee (ExCo) of the TCP to the end use working party (EUWP) and finally IEA headquarters.

The GECT is focussed on gaseous fuels, which may stem from conventional exploration, newly developed techniques or from sourced from biomass conversion. Combustion of natural gas in lieu of liquid fossil fuels is highly attractive for a number of reasons: An abundance of supply due to shale gas exploration lead to low fuel prices makes it particularly suitable for power generation, freight transportation and other applications with high running vs. investment costs. Environmentally, the low C/H ratio (1 to 4 versus roughly 1 to 2 for longer-chain liquid fuels) results in an immediate reduction in CO2 of 25% reduction compared to oil based fuels (and up to 50% compared coal). Furthermore, combustion of natural gas enables ultralow NOx and soot emissions due to lean pre-mixed combustion in IC engines in conjunction with very high efficiencies. From an energy security perspective, local availability leads to considerably reduced dependence on liquid fuels sourced primarily by OPEC.

Combustion of natural gas in IC engines is a rapidly developing field, due to straightforward implementation using broadly established engine components. Nonetheless a number of challenges remain, for which considerable research efforts are underway. These include in particular the development of novel and conventional ignition systems, higher engine efficiency and the reduction of unburnt hydrocarbon emissions. The task seeks to bundle these research efforts and provide a platform for international exchange between academia and industrial R&D. The GECT is among a total of 12 collaborative tasks in the “clean and efficient combustion” Technology Collaboration Programme (TCP) of the International Energy Agency (IEA). The combustion TCP itself seeks to address increasing concerns with respect to A) local pollution levels and B) rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere worldwide by improving the efficiency of combustion devices while simultaneously lowering emissions.

Documents annexés

• Final Report [PDF] 306 kB