Mercury Emissions from Coal-fired Power Plants

Earlier this year mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants were again on top of the public agenda. Germany’s Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (green party) published an outside study carried out by Ökopol GmbH, Hamburg. The main topic of this study was a comparison of the mercury emissions from German plants with the new U.S. limits. Flue gas concentration was recalculated based on freight information from the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR). These estimations were compared to US emission limit values, which first of all had to be converted to European conditions and include respective uncertainties. But the certain conclusion was: only one single coal-fired power plant in Germany would have been in compliance with US limits in 2013.

Already before the study was published, the VGB PowerTech Journal 12/2015 outlined the difficult conversion of US limit values to European conditions. In addition, it is known for some time that the E-PRTR, especially if data are collected in discontinuous measurements not always reflect the actual emission behaviour of the respective power plant site.

The VGB Workshop Mercury Control 2016 will offer an international platform for the exchange of experience on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants and will also provide insights into the current German debate.

Contact: Dr Andreas Wecker

VGB Innovation Award - Call for Proposals

The VGB Research Foundation has awarded outstanding performance of young university graduates (age limit: 35 years) working in the field of power and heat generation for more than 30 years. For the second time in 2016, we will honour such achievement with the VGB Innovation Award.

The VGB Innovation Award is endowed with 10,000 € and is presented on the occasion of the VGB Congress POWER PLANTS 2016. The work that is to be honoured in this way can relate either to innovation in the operation of power and heat generation plants, or to important new findings in research.

Based on the award guideline, all VGB member companies as well as the members of the Scientific Advisory Board of VGB have the right to propose candidates. Deadline for proposals is April 30, 2016.

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New! Free Downloads from the VGB PowerTech Journal

VGB PowerTech is among the leading international technical journals for power plant operation and engineering. Eleven bilingual German/English issues per year reflect on all important current topics of power and heat generation with qualified technical papers and latest news.

As of now you are alerted by the VGB Newsletter of usually two technical papers per issue available for free download. Latest downloads may be found in each newsletter edition in the category “New Publications”.

Hans ten Berge: Powering the Energy Union’s decarbonisation agenda

Decarbonisation is essential to guarantee the long-term sustainability of the global economy. Europe’s electricity sector is fully committed to leading this transition. The real challenge is to create a holistic market design that delivers the technologies needed for a balanced, low carbon energy mix, while being able to adapt to the evolving economics of power systems.

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VGB PowerTech Journal 12 (2015): VGB Congress Power Plants 2015. Gas Turbines

Editorial

Wolfgang Anzengruber

Shape the future of our energy supply

Some topics:

• The FlameSheet™ combustor system: A retrofitable, step change improvement in the flexibility of existing E & F-class gas turbines (Peter Stuttaford, Hany Rizkalla, Khalid Oumejjoud, Jeff Benoit and Waldemar Schneider)
• Realisation of the quick start ability in Stadtwerke München’s combined cycle CHP power plant “HKW Süd” – Concepts and operational experience (Julius Becker, Jürgen Gerhard and Julian Niedermeier)
• Industrialisation of 3D printing (additive manufacturing) for gas turbine components repair and manufacturing (Vladimir Navrotsky, Andreas Graichen and Hakan Brodin)
• Status of technology development of solar-hybrid gas-turbine systems (Uwe Gampe, Manfred Freimark, Stefano Giuliano, Sven Boje, Reiner Buck, Christian Felsmann, Stephan Heide, Michael Puppe, Ulrich Langnickel and Oliver Lammel) Download ...
• Emission limits of mercury for coal-fired power plants (Alfons Kather and Mathias Klostermann) Download ...
• Levelised Cost of Electricity 2015 (Christian Stolzenberger and Oliver Then) Download ...

Issue 12/2015

VGB PowerTech Journal 1/2 (2016): Energy Transition: Opportunities for Power Generation

Editorial

Hans ten Berge

Powering the Energy Union’s decarbonisation agenda
Some topics:

• The future role of renewables in Europe (Dörte Fouquet and Jana Viktoria Nysten)
• Future role of fossil generation in Europe (Emmanouil Kakaras, Tom De Latte, Patrick Clerens, Gosia Stein-Brzozowska and Michalis Agraniotis)
• The future role of energy storage in Europe (Ernst Zeller and Gerhard Totschnig) Download...
• Optimising the marketing of decentralised power generation provides new business opportunities for energy providers (Michael Küster, Leif Wiebking and Bernhard Meerbeck)
• New insights in CO2 post-combustion at Dürnrohr – An important step towards full-scale plants (Markus Rabensteiner, Gerald Kinger, Martin Koller and Christoph Hochenauer) Download...

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