The Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI) was devised to incubate and demonstrate more-efficient clean coal technologies that would be usable by new and existing U.S. power plants. It was hoped that by merging public- and private- sector interests, the program would benefit air quality, enhance grid reliability, help to reduce electricity prices, and improve U.S. energy security.
The CCPI is a 10-year, $2 billion program based on industry/government cost-sharing. It is part of President Bush's "Clear Skies and Climate Change" directive to reduce power plant emissions by 70% by 2018. The program is managed by the DOE's Office of Fossil Energy and implemented by the National Energy Technology Laboratory. To date, the DOE has announced two separate CCPI rounds, totaling 12 projects.
Software-only solution
In January 2003, then-Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham announced that Boston-based NeuCo Inc., a developer and vendor of plant optimization software, would spearhead one of the eight selected projects in the initial phase of the CCPI. All eight first-round projects had the same goal: to reduce the air pollution or greenhouse gases emitted by a test plant by optimizing its efficiency. But NeuCo's was the only one that did not entail the addition of process equipment to the test plant. It instead would deploy and demonstrate an integrated, software-based optimization solution at Houston-based Dynegy Inc.'s Baldwin Energy Complex, a three-unit, 1,768-MW coal-fired power plant in Baldwin, Ill. (Figure 1).
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1. Productive partnership. Dynegy's Baldwin Energy Complex in Illinois is home to NeuCo's CCPI optimization project to increase the efficiency and reduce emissions of the station's three coal-fired units.Courtesy: Dynegy Inc
NeuCo proposed to install and refine five real-time, closed-loop process optimization systems on Baldwin's three units over a four-year period. Based on NeuCo's ProcessLink technology platform—itself based on neural networks, thermodynamic algorithms, and expert systems—the optimization systems would target combustion, sootblowing, selective catalytic reduction (SCR) operations, unit thermal efficiency, and overall plant economics.
According to Curt Lefebvre, president and CEO of NeuCo, "The systems' expected benefits include reduced NOx emissions, improved fuel efficiency, and increased availability." Lefebvre explained that the improvements in fuel efficiency are expected to provide commensurate reductions in the output of greenhouse gases, mercury, and particulates. "When completed, this installation will represent the first time that multiple optimization software modules of this breadth have been integrated into a computerized process network of a power plant,"he said.
Lefebvre told us he is proud of the work his company is doing with Dynegy and the DOE. "The CCPI simultaneously takes on two big national challenges—ensuring the reliability of U.S. electric supply and environmental protection. Because the solutions to be developed by this project will enable generators to reduce both their costs and their plants' emissions, they will meet the program's stated goals and should provide huge benefits both to the industry and the public."
NeuCo is shouldering 55% of the Baldwin project's $19 million cost. The DOE's subsidy of the remainder will be repaid from sales of commercial products NeuCo expects to develop based on experience gained during this project.
Lefebvre says NeuCo chose the Baldwin facility as the optimization project's test plant for two reasons. One was the complement of low-NOx burners, overfire air systems, and SCR systems with which Dynegy recently upgraded Baldwin's three units. The other reason: In 2000, Baldwin's boilers—two cyclone units from Babcock & Wilcox and one tangentially fired unit built by Combustion Engineering, all designed to fire Illinois Basin coal—were converted to burn Powder River Basin coal exclusively. This switch, not uncommon in recent years among power producers for environmental compliance reasons, complicated the relationships among sootblowing and SCR operations, optimizing combustion, and minimizing unit heat rate.
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