It takes a village
To date, the process has produced four types of documents and databases that are used both progressively and for feeding back lessons learned into their predecessor documents (Figure 2).
2. Design for success. The CoalFleet for Tomorrow program produces a series of design guides and specifications that are progressively more detailed. Early experience with the specifications is fed back and captured in later editions of the documents. Source: EPRI
The first resource at the start of the process is the Advanced Coal Technology Knowledge Base, a web-based repository of information on trends in advanced coal technology design, cost, and performance. The core of the knowledge base is more than 50 design cases from eight state-of-the-art studies conducted by EPRI, the DOE, utilities, consultants, and teams of technology suppliers. Each case study details vital characteristics in up to 450 defined fields. CoalFleet adds data as they become available from new feasibility studies by members and from design decisions made by companies undertaking early deployment projects. The Knowledge Base also includes papers from key conferences and lessons learned from demonstration units.
A second resource is a series of plant design guides that were developed out of the knowledge base. The first of these guides, developed for IGCC plants, is the CoalFleet User Design Basis Specification for Coal-Based Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle, or UDBS for short. The UDBS is intended to foster the benefits of standardization in design specifications.
The 800-page IGCC UDBS defines the major specifications needed to contract for IGCC “reference plants”—generic, 600-MW and 900-MW (nominal) plants that use gasification processes and combustion turbines from several manufacturers that commercially guarantee their equipment. For bituminous coal plants, the UDBS includes plant designs using commercial entrained-flow gasifiers from GE Energy, ConocoPhillips, and Shell—both with and without CO2 separation. For low-sulfur Powder River Basin (subbituminous) coal, the UDBS includes plant designs from ConocoPhillips, Shell, and KBR—again, both with and without CO2 separation.
A reference plant replicates both the design and execution from project to project in order to reduce costs, shorten project schedules, and improve the project’s certainty of outcome. However, while defining the reference plants, the UDBS also allows for different coal types and other basic options to match the needs of different power companies.
The UDBS provides a comprehensive picture of what is involved in planning, building, and operating an IGCC plant—including, crucially, the tradeoffs an owner must make when making design and operational decisions. For example, the specification lays out the risks and rewards of various strategies for incorporating CO2 capture into a prospective plant design.
The UDBS has two novel aspects. First, it was written by more than 25 experts from around the world with experience and expertise in IGCC technology—and with the cooperation of equipment suppliers, plant designers, and EPC firms. Second, the document has been designed so users can substitute site- and system-specific data for nominal data, producing information that can become part of a site-specific specification. The UDBS provides a choice of configurations, reference site information, target performance, RAM (reliability, availability, and maintainability), and operability goals, along with matching data based on an EPRI reference site. The designs also provide for making a swap-out choice of environmental cleanup systems tailored to two levels of licensing constraint.
Email
Comments
Print
Reuse
