Fabric Filter Market Overview

Fabric Filter Market Overview

The new forecasts for coal-fired boiler additions in China represent a big increase in the world particulate control market. They also represent a very big increase in the desulfurization market. Both involve fabric filter expenditures.

The predilection for precipitators for particulate control will mean that most high sulfur installations will use precipitators for particulate control and wet absorbers for desulfurization. But, since China burns a lot of low sulfur coal, there will be substantial purchases of spray drier baghouses.

Over the next 15 years the purchase of particulate only fabric filters for coal-fired boilers will average 500-2000 MW/yr. But fabric filters for FGD will average 4000-8000 MW/yr. Thus, at $50/kW, annual sales will average $225-$500 million/year. But given the lower installed prices in China, actual revenues will be $112-$250-million/year. Even so, these are big numbers.

Who will capitalize on this market? What part will foreign firms play in the market? There are four types of revenue streams: consulting, systems, equipment, and bags. Let’s assume consulting revenue will be minimal. The typical project will involve an offshore system supplier with a local partner.

The offshore baghouse supplier is usually also the FGD system supplier. But the actual fabrication of the housing would take place in China at the partner’s shop or through subcontracting. The bags will be purchased from offshore suppliers at least for the short term.

Specific revenue forecasts by county and industry are included in Fabric Filters and Elements: World Markets. For more information on this report click on:

http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/air.html#N021 .

DOE Conference on SCR/SNCR Generates Good Dialog

Some 200 attendees got their money's worth and more from the DOE SCR/SNCR conference last week in Pittsburgh. Most of the news was positive. SCR performance is meeting expectations. SO₃ oxidation can be minimized. Mercury oxidation attributable to SCR is substantial as long as HCl is present. Catalyst cleaning can reduce lifetime costs. In fact, in one installation reactivity was restored to 100 percent whereas SO₂-SO₃ conversion was reduced substantially. This was due to a special cleaning process. The only bad news was the possible failure of the spray drier baghouse using activated carbon to remove mercury efficiently.

Here are the questions which utilities are asking this month:

What are the odds of getting better than 90 percent mercury removal if you burn bituminous coal, have an SCR, and have a wet scrubber with additives to prevent mercury release?
How much mercury removal will you get if you burn PRB coal, have a spray drier baghouse, and inject carbon between the spray drier and baghouse?
What percent NO_x removal will realistically be achieved over the campaign, if the SCR has 90 percent removal at optimum or guarantee conditions?
Are additives or wet precipitators the solution for SO₃ emissions?
What is the cost and availability of catalyst with 0.1-0.2 percent SO₃ conversion?
Will there be particulate reduction requirements and, if so, when? Will they be tied into toxic metals (surrogate)?
What is the quantity of fine particle emissions, and how do you measure them?
How important will HCl, HF, and toxic heavy metals be in your APC planning?
How soon will any of the new multi-pollutant technologies be a viable alternative?
Can you minimize risk by staging, and is this cost effective?

McIlvaine is addressing these questions in the Power Plant Knowledge System and will also be conducting a 4-hour discussion of them at Power-Gen on December 8. (Listed under Discussion Groups in the registration material.)

SCR and FGD Will Remove 90 Percent of Mercury

Tests by CONSOL are providing insights on the ability of SCR to oxidize mercury and of scrubbers to capture the oxidized mercury at plants burning bituminous coals. Without the SCR, 20 percent of mercury is typically unoxidized but with the SCR in place only 3-6 percent is unoxidized. This is an over simplification of the paper presented by Jeff Withum of CONSOL. Of three plants recently tested, the mercury removal was over 90 percent for the spray drier absorbers. It was less for the wet FGD. But Hans Hartenstein pointed out that this was because elemental mercury was released from the scrubber. If an additive such as TMT 15 is used, the wet scrubber should do a better job than the SDA on mercury capture. Hans points out that mercury is not a concern in Germany where all coal plants have FGD and SCR. Most use additives to prevent mercury releases.

Here are all the headlines from our Utility Fax Alert. It is part of the Utility Environmental Upgrade Tracking System. For more information, click on: http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/energy.html .

UTILITY FAX ALERT

#646 – October 31, 2003

Table of Contents

SCR CONFERENCE

· DOE Conference on SCR/SNCR Generates Good Dialog

· DOE to Fund Research on NO_x