Uncertainty prevails at Power-Gen Europe
The financial crisis in the European Union coupled with the German Energy policy (Energiewende) cast a pall over an otherwise very impressive and active conference and exhibition. The three days of activities were capped with a McIlvaine Webinar conducted an hour after the show closed on June 14. You can view the webinar in entirety at
The webinar started with coverage of the plenary panel session where the differences of opinion relative to the future of Germany were shown to be extreme. Economic disaster predicted by several panel members was countered with the comments of Alf-Henry Wulf of Alstom who saw “more opportunities than risks.” Thorsten Herden of VDMA believes the decision is irreversible. This is a sobering thought in light of the report that 600,000 German households are on the verge of losing power due to inability to pay the 33 cents/kWh which is the going rate in Germany.
EPPSA, which represents European power plant producers have made recommendations to accommodate the policy which would result in Germany producing 35 percent of its electricity from renewable by 2020. The group says that “Advanced Fossil Fuel Power Generation will be a fundamental requirement of a stable electricity grid.” The problem is that solar and wind are not reliable. You need the heavy rotating machinery at conventional power plants to provide the inertia to maintain the frequency (50 Hz) of the electricity supply.
Conventional coal-fired power plants will have to operate at partial load. This means improving performance to enhance this capability including ramp-up speed at low load and reducing part-load emissions. It will require developing flue gas parts for temperatures below the acid dewpoint.
The balance of the webinar was devoted to coverage of the speeches and exhibit displays. John Goldring of RJM talked briefly about the success obtained with low NOx burners and combustion optimization at Ferrybridge. The plant was able to reduce emissions to the targeted 200 mg/Nm3.
The webinar included details on the Durag use of thermography to optimize flame temperature and distribution for maximum boiler efficiency. A brief display of the IBAU website was accompanied by McIlvaine observations that exhibitors at Power-Gen Europe represented the world’s knowledge on conveying of flyash and dry sorbent. IBAU, F.L. Smidth, Claudius Peters, and United Conveyor were all exhibitors. A paper by United Conveyor covered aspects of sorbent injection including proper size reduction of the Trona.
Idex has acquired a number of companies over the years to position itself in the power industry. Idex Sampi was an exhibitor displaying a range of flow control products for fuel used with start- up of coal plants and as an alternative to gas in turbines. Corken supplies the pumps for moving ammonia and systems for vapor recovery.
McIlvaine will be posting 80 pictures from the show. Two include coverage of Siemens’ activity including the ABT burners and the precipitator upgrades. Siemens now has both the ABT and Steinmueller burner technologies. It offers complete precipitator control upgrade packages, which can eliminate the necessity of adding another field to obtain needed efficiency increases.
Burning wastes and difficult fuels was addressed by both Metso and Foster Wheeler. Metso has a number of new contracts for plants burning wastes. Foster Wheeler is building 4 x 550 MW advanced CFBs with ultrasupercritical steam technology for the Korean Southern Power Company Samcheok plant. The plant will burn high moisture Indonesian coal and biomass. No scrubber is needed due to the CFB capture of SO2.
In the webinar the Parker technologies for cooling and electricity storage were displayed. Parker needed a large stand to display the hundreds of products it offers the power industry.
Mercury capture was a subject addressed at the Cormetech stand. Karin Madsen of Haldor Topsoe provided details of research which shows the impact of temperature and ammonia on the oxidation of mercury in the presence of the catalyst.
There were a number of companies displaying air pollution control technology. B&W had a large stand. Alstom had a major presence but McIlvaine was unable to track down any of the air pollution control people. Hamon was exhibiting its acid gas and dust collection technologies. One recent success in Bosnia is a hybrid upgrade. A portion of an existing precipitator was replaced with bags. The result is an emission below 2 mg/Nm3. Andritz was displaying its newly acquired FGD technology along with its pumps and impressive hydropower capability.
The most impressive aspect of the displays was the coverage of gas turbine inlet filters. AAF, Flanders, Freudenberg, EMW and W. L. Gore all featured the high efficiency filters now available. There was agreement on the need for removal efficiencies at the EU 12 level but not on whether pulsed filters were generally needed. W. L. Gore has a new membrane high efficiency filter in both the pulsed and static design. The static design is a unique Z shape.
Dry Sorbent Injection and Material Handling in Coal-fired Power Plants June 21, 2012
Speakers on Thursday, June 21, 2012 at 10 a.m. (Central time) will be:
Tony Licata, Vice President of Babcock Power Environmental, Inc, will discuss the “Impact of Mixing on Performance of Dry Sorbent Injection (DSI) /Activated Carbon Systems.” Most people in the industry expect that DSI will play a significant role in the planning and implementation strategies for air quality compliance in the next few years. To date most of the published papers and technology interest has centered on which sorbent to use -- lime or sodium and types of injection equipment. There has been little interest in the optimization of mass transfer. Optimization of sorbent utilization may impact the viability of DSI on many projects. This presentation will discuss methods of enhancing mass transfer and the impacts of poor gas/sorbent mixing.
Mike Tate, Technical Manager of Research & Development for Graymont, Inc, will address the following questions: What are the key properties of hydrated lime that impact sorbent performance? How can these properties affect the design of sorbent injection systems? His presentation will describe lime characteristics and how they should be considered in the design of lime handling and storage systems.
Curt Biehn, Manager of Technical Sales & Marketing at Mississippi Lime, will present “Meeting Regulatory Needs with Hydrated Lime DSI.” The presentation will highlight hydrated lime's performance for SO3 mitigation in a variety of scenarios. Examples of full-scale applications that used hydrated lime to meet 2015 MATS guidelines will be provided. Comments on hydrated lime's flexibility towards injection location optimization will also be presented.
Yougen Kong, P.E., Ph.D., Technical Development Manager at Solvay Chemicals, Inc, will present “Dry Injection of Sodium Sorbents for HCl and SO2 Mitigation - Effects of Using Mills.” The presentation will describe the technologies of milling trona and sodium bicarbonate, pros and cons of each technology, capital and maintenance costs of mill systems and good system design principles. The dry injection of sodium bicarbonate or trona is a low-cost solution and has shown over 99 percent removal of HCl and 95 percent removal of SO2. The trona shipped after production has a mean diameter of about 30 µm and can be used as is. On the other hand, the sodium bicarbonate has a mean diameter of about 150 µm and needs to be milled before being injected into the flue gas. While it is optional to mill trona, milling trona can reduce the particle sizes and thus improve the dispersion of trona particles inside the flue gas. Better mixing between the particles and flue gas, in combination with higher surface areas of finer trona particles, can result in better mitigation performance of HCl and SO2. Since sodium bicarbonate out of production is too coarse to be injected directly into the flue gas, it needs to be milled in order to have good mitigation performance of HCl and SO2.
Steve Baloga, P.E., Southern Air Solutions Corporation, will present “Dry Reagent Injection for Utility MATS, ICI Boiler and Portland Cement Kiln NESHAP Compliance.” Since Steve does not represent trona or DSI equipment providers, he will give an unbiased assessment of trona for DSI and associated issues based on experience gained over many trials. Results of trona injection for SO2 and HCl reduction for a utility boiler with ESP, an industrial boiler with ESP and a cement kiln with FFBH will be presented. The effect of particle size reduction for trona will be discussed. In the course of the presentation, additional considerations will be mentioned that users must consider when evaluating sodium based reagents: impact on PM emissions (including PM2.5/CPM), impact to Hg emissions, impact to flyash quality, flue gas temperature limitations, material handling considerations (avoiding pre-calcination), removal and potential leaching of volatile HAP metals in trona laden flyash and cement alkali silica reactivity issues related to sodium sorbents.