In real life, over 50% of electricity production by burning fuel uses a so-called fluidized-bed burner. (And rest is mainly even more complicated things..)
Fluidized bed burners have 2 key characteristics, which, in my opinion, can be turned into nice tech mechanic:
- burns only pulverized fuel (usually coal)
- requires supply of air to keep dust in fluidized state
So, I suggest advanced (say Medium Voltage) version of generator inspired by Fluidized-bed burners.
Possible mechanics for the new block:
- crafted from a normal generator, mv cables, and something to make it more expensive; it could be bronze one like like CESU storage
- has gui similar to normal generator, except that it has two slots: one for Coal Dust and one for Compressed Air Cell; both slots have separate gauges above them
- 1 Coal Dust & 1 Compressed Air Cell creates in FBB the same amount of energy a normal generator makes from coal, but 4 or 8 times faster
- Compressor without item in input slot can supply neighbor Generator with air without requiring cells (like Pump could supply Compressor for making snowballs, not sure if it's still a thing)
Wikipedia page for reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluidized_bed_combustion