Section A: Generation & storage technologies for the future

Thursday, 14 September 2017, 11:15-11:45h/A04

Multifuel CFB solutions – producing power in a flexible environment

Dr. Markus Bolhàr-Nordenkampf, Valmet GesmbH, Österreich; Ari Kokko and Jouni Kinni, Valmet Technology Oy, Finland

European Union is leading energy sector towards renewable energy production and circular economy. Today the drivers to invest in renewable energy are missing since most of the national incentive systems have been cancelled or minimized. When talking about fluidized bed boilers and renewable energy it means the combustion of biomass. Bio-boom started almost twenty years ago from Finland and Sweden and when the demand of biomass increased also the price went up. Now without any incentives the firing of biomass is not feasible before a new mechanism to encourage the use of renewable fuels is in place. At the same time record low oil price is confusing the situation more.

Power plants in Europe are ageing and quite many of those are firing coal only. In this uncertain situation CFB boiler is the right solution in repowering projects – almost all the projects are replacement investments because new capacity is not needed in Europe. CFB’s biggest benefit is the capability to burn many kind of solid fuels - a CFB boiler can be designed to fire 100% coal and 100% biomass including lower cost biomass and waste based fuel. This kind of approach provides flexibility for fuel portfolio in the future until investment drivers are clear.

This paper introduces several projects under construction or commissioning highlighting CFB’s superiority in repowering projects – meaning replacement investment. For instance, the most recent projects are 80 MWe case in Czech Republic, 50 MWe case in Hungary and 30 MWe and 150 MWe cases in Finland. The paper introduces these projects and design features with fuel portfolio. The paper gives also same evidence that multifuel approach is not decreasing the reliability of the plant by showing actual operating data from existing CFBs firing several fuels.