Improving The Efficiency Of Coal Fired Power Plants

Coal has long been the major fossil fuel used to produce electricity. However, coal-fired electric power plants are one of the largest sources of air pollution in the United States, with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from burning of fossil fuels believed to be the major contributor to global climate change. Regulations under development at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would impose new requirements on fossil-fuelled (mostly coal-fired) power plants (CFPPs) to control GHG emissions. This book focuses on efficiency improvements to power plants, and discusses retrofits, technologies, and other modifications to facility operations which offer the potential to improve power plant efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions.

This book presents the evolution toward advanced coal-fired power plants. Advanced power plants with an efficiency level of 45% are today commercially available and even more efficient plants are in their development phase. Considering that presently many pulverized coal-fired power plants operate with an efficiency of about 32%, an improvement of more than 40% specific coal consumption and CO2 discharge can be achieved. Before trying to apply as a secondary measure the use of carbon sequestration, it seems that this 40% specific CO2 discharge reduction as a primary measure can much easier be achieved. The effect of power generation on the environment can be drastically improved by the use of flue gas cleanup systems in advanced pulverized coal-fired power plants (SO2 emission reduction from 40 to 1.4 lb/MWh and NOx emission reduction from 7.5 to 0.64 lb/MWh). With an increased number of coal-fired plants, CO2 discharge and emissions can be reduced, even with an increase of electric power generation in the US by 38% over the next 20 years. Even though the book concentrates on pulverized coal-fired power plants, it also discusses and compares other options like fluidized-bed combustion and coal gasification.

Abstract: Coal is the principal fuel for the generation of electrical power globally. It is the leading source of power generation in OECD countries and the dominant fuel source behind economic growth in non-OECD countries. However, while providing over 40% of the world's electricity, it is responsible for more than 70% of the CO2 arising from electricity generation. The IEA carried out a project to examine the potential to improve the performance of existing coal-fired plants. Two power units in China were selected to showcase measures that would improve their net efficiency. The results built on the efficiency gains made under China's national energy efficiency improvement programme and demonstrated the enormous potential to improve performance, with each percentage point increase capable of reducing CO2 emissions by many millions of tonnes over a unit's operational lifetime. Experiences learned in China can be applied to improving coal-fired power plant efficiency worldwide

Thermal Power Plants: Modeling, Control, and Efficiency Improvement explains how to solve highly complex industry problems regarding identification, control, and optimization through integrating conventional technologies, such as modern control technology, computational intelligence-based multiobjective identification and optimization, distributed computing, and cloud computing with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technology. Introducing innovative methods utilized in industrial applications, explored in scientific research, and taught at leading academic universities, this book: Discusses thermal power plant processes and process modeling, energy conservation, performance audits, efficiency improvement modeling, and efficiency optimization supported by high-performance computing integrated with cloud computing Shows how to simulate fossil fuel power plant real-time processes, including boiler, turbine, and generator systems Provides downloadable source codes for use in CORBA C++, MATLAB®, Simulink®, VisSim, Comsol, ANSYS, and ANSYS Fluent modeling software Although the projects in the text focus on industry automation in electrical power engineering, the methods can be applied in other industries, such as concrete and steel production for real-time process identification, control, and optimization.

Coal has long been the major fossil fuel used to produce electricity. The existing coal-fired power generation fleet consists of over fifteen hundred separate units ranging in size from just a few megawatts (MW) to thirteen hundred (1,300) MW. Together these coal-fired power plants (CFPPs) constitute over 300 gigawatts (GW) of installed electric generating capacity and are responsible for generating more electricity than any other fuel type in the United Sates: between thirty-seven and fifty percent of the total kilowatt-hours (kWh) produced annually during the last decade. However, coal-fired electric power plants are one of the largest sources of air pollution in the United States, with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from burning of fossil fuels believed to be the major contributor to global climate change. This book discusses efficiency improvement options of coal-fired power plants.

The Clean Coal Technology Demonstration Program, the Power Plant Improvement Initiative, and the Clean Coal Power Initiative are gov¿t. and industry co-funded programs. Their goal is to demonstrate a new generation of innovative coal-utilization technologies in a series of projects carried out across the country. These demonstrations are conducted on a commercial scale to prove the technical feasibility of the technologies and to provide technical and financial info. for future applications. It will also provide a number of advanced, more efficient coal-based technologies that meet increasingly strict environmental standards. This report describes 4 projects aimed at improving or optimizing the performance of coal-fired power plants. Illus.

Since first AC current high-power hydropower plant was put in operation, built by Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse in 1895 on Niagara Falls, electrification of the world has dramatically changed. The growing power demand and energy consumption in the last decades require fundamental changes in the process, power production, and services. These requirements tend to use both conventional and nonconventional energy generation in order to have power plants economically useful and environmentally friendly to the society. The goal of this textbook is to provide an up-to-date review of this important topic with specific emphasis on the current guidelines for improving overall efficiency, lowering emissions, and using large share of renewable energy.

Carbon Capture and Storage is a key technology for a sustainable and low carbon economy. This book unites top academic and industry researchers in search for commercial concepts for CCS at coal power ploants. This reference focuses on power plant technology and ways to improve efficiency. It details the three principal ways of capturing the CO2 produced in power plants: oxyfuel combustion, postcombustion and precombustion, with the main part concentrating on the different approaches to removing carbon dioxide. Wtih an eye on safety, the authors explain how the three parts of the CCS chain work - capture, transport and storage - and how they can be performed safely. The result is specific insights for process engineers, chemists, physicists and materials engineers in their relevant fields, as well as a sufficiently broad scope to be able to understand the opportunities and implications of the other disciples.