Power Air Quality Insights No

· Huge Variable in Fabric Filter Market Depending on Power Regulations in U.S. and China

· “Inlet Air Pretreatment for Gas Turbines” is “Hot Topic Hour” on Thursday, March 14, 2013

· Headlines for the February 2013 Air & Water Pollution Monitoring World Markets Newsletter

The McIlvaine forecast for the use of activated carbon and bromine and the investment in hardware for mercury reduction is varying greatly from month to month. Annual future purchases will be between $500 million and $1 billion worldwide, but there are many variables which will determine where within that range the actual numbers fall.

The market for mercury control for waste-to-energy plants is growing steadily, and there are few variables which could drastically alter the forecasts. However, the waste-to-energy market is small in comparison to the power plant market. This market is much more difficult to predict.

The market for mercury control in coal-fired power plants is subject to major variables including:

Timing: Some U.S. power plants are already reducing mercury emissions based on state regulations and on a federal subsidy for refined coal. Regulations requiring mercury reduction by all power plants has been promulgated, but there are some delays in implementation. Similar regulations have also been promulgated for industrial boilers and cement plants, but they are also subject to some uncertainties.

Regulations in other countries are under consideration, but none have as yet promulgated regulations which would require extensive mercury reduction.

Improved performance of some of the options: One activated carbon supplier has demonstrated a new product which is not brominated but relies on bromine introduced with the coal. The amount of carbon required to meet a given efficiency level is as low as 25 percent of that required with a standard brominated product.

The success of this product would reduce the market for activated carbon and increase the market for the direct use of the chemical. There are potential advances in the use of scrubbers which would also change the balance in favor of the direct use.

On the other hand, the same carbon supplier has demonstrated an activated carbon which can perform well in the presence of SO₃. This could justify utility decisions to spend more on carbon, but eliminate the need for sorbent injection just for SO₃capture.

Huge Variable in Fabric Filter Market Depending on Power Regulations in U.S. and China

The market for fabric filter systems is now predicted at less than $9 billion in 2016 and 2017. However, if tough particulate regulations were to be enforced in the power industry, the market would rise to as much as $15 billion per year. This is the conclusion reached in World Fabric Filter and Element Market published by the McIlvaine Company. (www.mcilvainecompany.com)

World Region	2016	2017
Africa	214	222
CIS	263	273
East Asia	4,014	4,301
Eastern Europe	183	184
Middle East	266	276
NAFTA	1,673	1,633
South & Central America	469	482
West Asia	635	771
Western Europe	805	817
Total	8,522	8,959

China is now in the process of evaluating the ability of existing precipitators to meet the particulate reduction goals. The tentative conclusion is that widespread investment in fabric filters may be the only option. If every power plant in China were to switch from precipitators to fabric filters, the cost would be over $50 billion.

The new power plant air toxic rule in the U.S. (MATS) has been weakened to define particulate as just discrete particles and to eliminate the inclusion of condensibles. This revision will allow utilities to meet the rules with existing precipitators. However, the rule does require continuous measurement of particulate mass instead of just opacity. This means that the weight during excursions will be included in the totals. Many believe that the existing precipitators will prove inadequate when subjected to continuous mass measurement. Less than 15 percent of U.S. coal-fired capacity is fitted with fabric filters. If the remaining capacity were forced to install fabric filters, the capital investment would be in excess of $30 billion.

More and more companies around the world are installing PV solar panels to cut their electricity costs. McIlvaine tracks these installations in Renewable Energy Projects and Update.

Hanwha Solar Supplies Largest Solar Rooftop Installation in France
Hanwha Solar, a global provider of total PV solar solutions and a flagship company of top-10 Korean business enterprise Hanwha Group, has delivered 7.7 MW of PV modules into the largest rooftop installation in France. Solvéo Energie, French EPC and customer of Hanwha Solar, has constructed a building in the municipality of Rion-des-Landes, which is designed to create ideal cultivation conditions for a Ginseng plantation. By equipping the rooftop with solar modules, the building furthermore secures the financing of the project. The plantation was officially inaugurated September 21, 2012.

The figures of the project are impressive: The 9 hectare rooftop is equipped with 36,900 PV panels, totaling 8.7 MW installed capacity, of which 7.7 MW have been delivered by Hanwha Solar. With an expected annual production of 10,000,000 kWh, the new home of Ginseng plants will cover the average electricity consumption of 4,000 households. In view of this large scale, the short construction phase of only six months is even more striking. Besides delivering its PV modules, Hanwha Solar was able to facilitate flexible financing through its financing tool kit that is available for selected projects.

SnapNrack, a leading manufacturer of solar panel racking systems, unveiled a 1 MW solar system at San Rafael Airport in San Rafael, CA. SnapNrack overcame limited roof space, sub-optimal roof orientation and varied building design to provide a customized racking system that supplies the majority of the power the airport uses.

SnapNrack developed a unique racking system that spans the entire roof of each building, providing a single plane and angle. This evenly dispersed the load of the modules and compiled with the building design load requirement. The SnapNrack engineering team worked closely with Russell Pacific, the contracted supplier for materials, and the solar installation contractors to design this unusual but effective system.

The final system at the San Rafael airport had over 4,600 modules installed on 51 buildings with 12 different designs. A built-up substructure was created to support the rail and modules on the north facing roofs from 1.5 inch galvanized steel pipe and was then attached to the building’s structural supports; mimicking the standard 200 Series ground mount. In the end, this unique system went in as planned and on time thanks to the Series 200 racking system by SnapNrack.

SunPower Corp. announced the completion of a 1.3 MW high efficiency SunPower solar power system on the roof of the Exploratorium’s future home on San Francisco’s Embarcadero. The system is designed to ultimately generate 100 percent of the electricity demand at the new state-of-the-art facility, which is scheduled to open in spring 2013.

The system uses SunPower solar panels that are up to 50 percent more efficient than conventional panels. System performance, updated every 15 minutes, will be displayed in the lobby of the new facility.

To meet its net-zero energy goal, as well as to qualify as a LEED gold facility, a number of additional features have been integrated into the design of the new Exploratorium facility, including an innovative heating and cooling system using filtered water from the San Francisco Bay, high performance glass to limit heat gain, maximized use of natural light, and use of low-emitting materials and materials with recycled content.

Canadian Solar Inc., one of the world’s largest solar companies, provided the solar modules for one of Europe’s largest skiing halls. The PV rooftop installation on the alpincenter in Hamburg-Wittenburg, Germany, uses Canadian Solar modules with a total output of 3.6 MW. The winter sports center’s operator reaps a double benefit: using the self-produced solar power significantly offsets energy costs while at the same time reducing the power needed to run the cooling system thank to the shadowing effect underneath the solar systems.

Kyocera Supplies Solar Modules for North Queensland, Australia’s Largest Installation
Kyocera Solar, Inc., a leading supplier of reliable solar modules and renewable energy solutions, recently supplied 348 kW of solar modules that now cover the roof of the Townsville RSL Stadium in North Queensland, Australia. The photovoltaic installation, which will produce approximately 500 MWh of energy annually, is now the largest in North Queensland and will supply the equivalent of two-thirds of the stadium’s energy requirements by utilizing the clean, renewable energy of the sun.

Ergon Energy installed the solar system, which will generate about 1,400 kWh each day, equivalent to the daily energy requirements of 75 typical North Queensland homes.

“Inlet Air Pretreatment for Gas Turbines” is “Hot Topic Hour” on March 14, 2013

Gas- (and oil-fired) turbines consume a large quantity of ambient air and the physical characteristics of this air can have a significant impact on the performance, maintenance requirements and life of a turbine. Dirty intake air will cause erosion, fouling, corrosion and cooling passage plugging. The temperature and humidity of the air will affect the efficiency of the turbine.

When the air has fine particulates as exist in desert, rural and even urban settings, one or more stages of inlet air filters, depending on the particulate loading and particle size, are necessary to protect the high speed elements within the gas turbine from excessive wear. These filters will also help power plant operators meet their PM_2.5emission regulations and in some localities such as some in California where the turbine exhaust is expected to be cleaner than the ambient air, very fine secondary filters are necessary.

Since the temperature of inlet air will affect the performance of the turbine, air-cooling systems are typically utilized in hot climates. The most common methods currently being employed for inlet air temperature control are evaporative cooling and mechanical chilling. The former requires significant quantities of water, while the latter has a large parasitic power loss.

Freezing issues as well as efficiency improvement sometimes require heating the air in very cold climates.

The following speakers will address the issues related to the design, installation, operation and maintenance of inlet air filters and heating/cooling systems for various turbines types and environmental conditions with a discussion of capital and operating costs, affect on turbine performance, life and efficiency, their experience with installed systems and any new technology being tested or developed for inlet air treatment.

Luke Buntz, Mechanical Engineer, Kiewit Power Engineers Co., will discuss the ARCTIC (Absorption Refrigeration Cycle Turbine Inlet Conditioning) System. ARCTIC is a breakthrough in inlet conditioning technology from Kiewit Power Engineers that uses waste heat to drive an ammonia absorption system. By use of a patented process, ARCTIC allows power plant owners the flexibility to maximize the output or efficiency of a combustion turbine by manipulating the turbine inlet temperature with a fraction of the auxiliary load of a comparable mechanical chiller.

Jerrod Walters, Gas Turbine Business Development Manager and Bryan Xu, Gas Turbine Product Manager at TDC Filter Manufacturing, Inc., (A Midwesco Filter Resources Company).

Tom Kelmartin, Global Product Specialist for Gore^® Turbine Filters at W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc., will discuss “A new HEPA solution for gas turbine inlet air filtration.” Filtration of turbine inlet combustion air is employed to reduce compressor fouling and the commensurate power loss, however it has been largely ineffective at capturing submicron particles, necessitating periodic turbine shutdowns for off-line washing. High efficiency HEPA solutions have been employed for a number of years with some success, but these systems frequently require multiple filtration stages resulting in higher initial pressure drops. A new HEPA solution has been introduced which is a direct retrofit for existing filter houses, with similar pressure drops and lifetimes of conventional lower efficiency filters. In the presentation this filtration technology will be examined and the results of field experience will be discussed.

To register for the March 14, 2013 “Hot Topic Hour” at 10 a.m. (DST), click on:

On Thursday at 10 a.m. Central time, McIlvaine hosts a 90 minute web meeting on important energy and pollution control subjects. Power webinars are free for subscribers to either Power Plant Air Quality Decisions or Utility Environmental Upgrade Tracking System. The cost is $125.00 for non-subscribers. Market Intelligence webinars are free to McIlvaine market report subscribers and are $400.00 for non-subscribers.

	2013
DATE	SUBJECT
March 14	Inlet Air Pretreatment for Gas Turbines	Power
March 21	Industrial Boiler MACT Impact and Control Options – Part 1	Power
March 28	Mercury Measurement and Control – Part 1	Power
April 4	Industrial Boiler MACT Impact and Control Options – Part 2	Power
April 11	Mercury Measurement and Control – Part 2	Power
April 18	Multi-pollutant Control Technology	Power
April 25	Control Technologies for Fine Particulate Matter	Power
May 2	Flyash Pond and Wastewater Treatment Issues	Power
May 9	Clean Coal Technologies	Power
May 16	Power Plant Automation and Control	Power
May 23	Cooling Towers	Power
May 30	Air Pollution Control Markets (geographic trends, regulatory developments, competition, technology developments)	Market Intelligence
June 6	Report from Power-Gen Europe (update on regulations, speaker and exhibitor highlights)	Power
June 13	Monitoring and Optimizing Fuel Feed, Metering and Combustion in Boilers	Power
June 20	Dry Sorbent Injection and Material Handling for APC	Power
June 27	Power Generation Forecast for Nuclear, Fossil and Renewables	Market Intelligence
July 11	New Developments in Power Plant Air Pollution Control	Power
July 18	Measurement and Control of HCl	Power
July 25	GHG Compliance Strategies, Reduction Technologies and Measurement	Power
August 1	Update on Coal Ash and CCP Issues and Standards	Power
August 8	Improving Power Plant Efficiency and Power Generation	Power
August 15	Control and Treatment Technology for FGD Wastewater	Power
August 22	Status of Carbon Capture and Storage Programs and Technology	Power
August 29	Pumps for Power Plant Cooling Water and Water Treatment Applications	Power
Sept. 5	Fabric Selection for Particulate Control	Power
Sept. 19	Air Pollution Control for Gas Turbines	Power
Sept. 26	Mercury Control and Removal Status and Cost	Power