The interest in renewable small-scale energy plants for distributed power generation is increasing the demand for software tools apt to study and develop control systems able to manage advanced integrated systems. In this framework, biomass, as a renewable energy resource, needs to be pre-processed for being exploited in small CHP units: by the way, pyrolysis is one of the available options for transforming solid biomass into useful liquid and gaseous fuels. This work is concerned with the development of a time-dependent model of a rotary-kiln pyrolyser for biomass: the model is meant for applications in control system development and simulation of integrated energy systems, where the pyrolyser is connected to a power generation package. The model was developed within TRANSEO environment, and it is based on a quasi 2-D numerical discretisation of the rotary kiln. Results are shown for a real case, which is currently under construction: the model shows to be able to predict the impact on fuel yields of the different operating conditions, as well as to capture the main transient phenomena occurring during the change of pyrolyser operating conditions.
