A key advantage of production of liquids is that fuel production can be de-coupled from power generation. Peak power provision is thus possible with a much smaller pyrolysis plant, or liquids can be readily transported to a central power plant using engines or turbine. There are additional benefits from potentially higher plant availability from the intermediate fuel storage. The economics of power generation suggest that a niche of up to 10 MWe is available for exploitation which is illustrated later.

Bio-oil has been successfully fired in a diesel test engine where it behaves very similar to diesel in terms of engine parameters and emissions (43). A diesel pilot fuel is needed, typically 5% in larger engines, and no significant problems are foreseen in power generation up to 15 MWe per engine. Gas turbine applications are also considered to be feasible although no work has been carried out in the last 10 years nor on fast pyrolysis liquids. However, a new project has recently been implemented to investigate this and this is more likely to be viable for larger scale applications (44).