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A twist on an old technique, flue gas recirculation, helps prevent slagging in the upper furnace and convective pass, according to pilot testing recently completed by APTECH CST and the Southern Research Institute. The technology—along with a companion technology for furnace sorbent and urea injection for SO₂ and NO^x control—could help owner/operators of smaller, older coal-fired plants meet emissions limits at a reasonable cost.

Software ranges from shrink-wrapped products available “off the shelf” to custom corporate implementations of enterprise systems that require sessions with shrinks to keep everyone sane. Regardless of its complexity, every piece of software a plant uses, or interfaces to, poses critical issues that require life-cycle management. Although functionality has always been the chief specification for software, plants must pay far more attention to long-term quality issues. These two concerns are often at odds with each other.

Most of today’s operating coal plants began service at least a generation ago and were designed to burn eastern bituminous coal. A switch to Powder River Basin coal can stress those plants’ boiler systems, especially the pulverizers, beyond their design limits and cause no end of operational and maintenance problems. Many of those problems are caused by failing to maintain good fuel fineness when increasing fuel throughput.

An increasing number of low-pressure steam turbines—especially at supercritical fossil units—have experienced stress corrosion cracking in the blade attachment region of their low-pressure rotors. Approaches to solving this problem range from redesign of the attachment and blade replacement to in-situ weld repair. Regardless of the procedure selected, the solution must completely restore the turbine performance while minimizing outage duration.

Top Plant: Not all coal-fired power plants are constructed by investor-owned utilities or independent power producers selling to wholesale markets. When Newmont Mining Corp. recognized that local power supplies were inadequate and too expensive to meet long-term electricity needs for its major gold- and copper-mining operations in northern Nevada, it built its own generation. What’s more, Newmont’s privately owned 200-MW net coal-fired plant features power plant technologies that will surely become industry standards. Newmont’s investment in power and technology is also golden: The capital cost will be paid back in about eight years.

Faced with soaring energy prices, researchers and developers worldwide are giving compressed air energy storage (CAES)—a technology almost 50 years old—a dusting, a spit shine, and a new life. In particular, they see it as a critical component for the dispatch of wind and other renewable power. The technology, which involves storing off-peak-generated energy in […]

Top Plant: The staff of the Rawhide Energy Station have been racking up operating stats and an environmental performance record that is the envy of other plant managers. In the past decade Rawhide has enjoyed an equivalent availability factor in the mid- to high 90s and an average capacity factor approaching 90%. Still not content with this performance, Rawhide invested in new technology and equipment upgrades to further optimize performance, reduce emissions, and keep cost competitive.

Entergy christened its Performance Monitoring and Diagnostic Center several years ago to leverage the expertise of its most senior operators and technicians across the company’s entire fleet of plants. The center also makes use of advanced software tools that increase plant availability and reliability by identifying faults before they become major, unplanned outages. The center paid for itself for years to come with a single “big catch” last year.

Courtesy: Platts Data source: Platts Energy Advantage and POWERmap. All rights reserved.

Top Plant: From tall skyscrapers and flashing neon signs to Buddhist temples and pagodas, South Korea is a mixture of the new and old Asia. Doing its part to help modernize this country, the Boryeong Thermal Power Complex operates six coal-fired 500-MW units that provide electricity to power South Korea’s economic growth. One of the important reasons for this facility’s overall success is its operational reliability. An example of this is Boryeong Unit 3’s outstanding achievement of 3,000 days of trouble-free operation.