Section C Ι Asset Optimisation & Environmental Protection

Thursday, 22 September 2016, 15:45-16:15h/C04

Overview on measures to increase flexibility in existing coal fired power plants and economic assessment

Udo Gade, Vattenfall Europe Generation AG and Jörg Böwe, Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Europe

The plant Moorburg - 2 x 820 MWel - was designed as a base load plant with a corresponding number of start-up procedures and load change rates.

The changed circumstances of the electricity market in Germany have caused significant changes in the requirements to coal-fired condensing power plants.

Due to the feed-in from wind energy plants and photovoltaic systems, coal-fired power plants are no longer mainly used for base load coverage, but they act as a buffer between the amount of electricity generated from renewable sources of energy and the currently required amount of electricity.

To fulfill these new requirements, MHPSE was contracted by Vattenfall to carry out an analysis on the transition of the Moorburg plant to flexible operation. As a result MHPSE developed in cooperation with Vattenfall a package of measures called MoorFlex.

MHPSE was assigned to implement following measures at Moorburg power plant:

• Adjusting the load collective of the plant
• Increasing the load changing rates
• Reducing the minimum boiler load without supporting fire
• Reduced heat losses during plant shutdown
• Optimizing the start-up procedures in terms of start-up times and oil consumption