Abstracts - VGB PowerTech Journal 12/2007

VGB Congress “Power Plants 2007”

This year’s VGB Congress “Power Plants 2007” took place in Salzburg/Austria from 19th to 21st September 2007. The guiding theme was “Efficient Power Plant Technologies! Our Contribution to a Secure and Climate Compatible Electricity Generation”. More than 1,200 participants from 28 nations attended the plenary and technical lectures on the topics “Market and Competition“ as well as “Technology, Operation and Environment”. Special papers were dealing with further topics like “Requirements to be Met by Electricity Generation from the Viewpoint of the Market“, “Challenges for European Manufacturers and Supply Industry”, “Energy Supply and Climate Protection – A Conflict that Can be Solved?“ as well as the “Ethical Aspects of Future Global Electricity Generation”. The Congress was rounded off by a broad side programme and technical visits.

Rothensee Waste-to-energy Power Plant – Commissioning and Trial Operation

Annette Jäger and Lutz Strumpf

The Rothensee waste-to-energy power plant is providing excellent infrastructural premises for running a waste-to-energy power plant with extraction of electrical energy as well as district heating for the City of Magdeburg. Originally planned with two combustion lines (lines one and two) the building of another two lines (line three and four) was started during the commissioning of the first two lines in 2005. In 2006 the total investment was completed. The plant is operated in accordance with the 17th BlmSchV.

Upgrading and Optimisation of the GMVA Oberhausen

Ingo Schellenberger

Since the middle of the 90’s the waste incineration plant Gemeinschafts-Müll Verbrennungsanlage (GMVA) Niederrhein in Oberhausen was one of the plants in Germany with the biggest installed combustion capacity. The installed capacity could only be used by around 70 %, because of several problem technical and organisational. In the year 2002 an improvement concept was developed that was realised from 2003 to 2006. This upgrading concept tries to use the existing potentials in order to get an economic rehabilitation for the company with a forward looking constitution in a competitive market.

Coal Ashes and FGD Gypsum – By-product or Waste?

Wolfgang vom Berg and Hans-Joachim Feuerborn

The production of coal combustion products (CCPs) has been increased by the years due to
legal requirements for flue gas cleaning. The utilisation of CCPs is well established in some European countries, based on long-term experience and technical as well as environmental benefits. In Europe (EU 27) about 100 million tonnes of CCPs are produced annually. The CCPs are mainly utilised in the building material industry, in civil engineering, in road construction, for construction work in underground coal mining as well as for recultivation and restoration purposes in open cast mines.

Ecotoxicological Characterisation of Incineration Ashes

Heidrun Moser and Jörg Römbke

The ecotoxicological characterisation of waste is part of the identification of waste types as hazardous or non-hazardous according to the European Waste List and the German Waste Catalogue Ordinance. In the co-operation project of the Federal Environmental Agency, ITAD e.V. and VGB PowerTech e.V. the ecotoxicological potential of twelve waste incineration ashes (fresh and aged material) has been investigated.

Life Cycle Assessment of Thermal Waste Treatment Systems

Horst Fehrenbach, Irene Vogt and Gudrun Both

The municipal solid waste incinerator (MSWI) has been the principal treatment route for organic municipal wastes in Germany since June 2005. The question of thermal alternatives arose in conjunction with the limited capacities available. Co-incineration is one of the key topics here. This forms the backdrop for the launch of a comprehensive research project by the North Rhine-Westphalian environment ministry (MUNLV), with the aim of assessing the life cycles of existing facilities (MSWIs, MBTs, cement works, power stations) and their interdependent treatment systems within the state.

Raising Efficiency at the Heyden Power Station through CFD-based Flue Gas Draft System Flow Optimisation

Jens-Uwe Freitag and Dieter Neuman

The demand for the economical operation of power plants is increasing permanently due to the competitive coal qualities available on the world market. This article describes the realisation and in particular the results of a flue gas draft system optimisation at the E.ON owned Heyden hard coal-fired power station.The target of any action was to ensure that imported coal with lower calorific value could be used permanently. Under economical aspects only the permanent reduction of the pressure losses was the right solution.

Statistical Evaluation of Malfunctions in Wind Power Plants

Christoph Fleischer and Walter Sucrow

New challenges by wind energy are risen, this means, that availabilities of wind power plants have to be increased as well as minimisation of breakdowns. Ultimately a retrenchment of operational management costs can be realised/achieved. The article gives a review of operational management’s taken efforts to adjust manufacturer’s frequently inadequate documentation to provide operations – after strenuous classification - with statistical evaluations of incoming error messages. These statistical evaluations lead to the identification of breakdown times as well as idleness times. Finally operation’s costs can be monitored in cent per kilowatt hour.

State-of-the-art Sulphite Liquor Technology – Examples of Sulphite Liquor Boilers Already Erected or Under Erection

Ulrich Hohenwarter, Martin Pogoreutz, Wolfgang Glaser and Paul Renetzeder

A number of pulp mills operate on the principle of the flexible sulphite process thus making sulphite liquor boilers an interesting market niche. For an economically and energetically optimal cracking process it is essential that the appropriate residence time and temperature of the particles in the combustion chamber of the liquor boiler be guaranteed. A number of successfully realised plants will be presented in this paper as a case in point.

Performance Contracting for a Combustion-optimiser based on Neuronal Networks in a Coal-fired Power Plant

Dirk Kiehn and Dirk Schmidt

Since August 2005 a combustion-optimiser based on neuronal nets, called PiT-Navigator has been operated in the “Modellkraftwerk Völklingen” power plant. The PiT-Navigator is including a flame analysis by cameras with self-learning adaptive software. The supplier company installed, operates and maintains the system based on a performance contracting at supplier’s expense.

Improved Cooling Concept for the Turbine Blades of High Temperature Gas Turbines

Dieter Bohn

The goal of the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 561 “Thermally Highly Loaded, Porous and Cooled Multi-layer Systems for Combined Cycle Power Plants” is to expand the current technological and scientific knowledge on power plants in order to achieve total efficiencies of 65% in a combined cycle power plant in the year 2025. Therefore, the aero-thermomechanical, structural-mechanical, materials’ scientific and production fundamentals for the development of steam and gas turbine components that are able to withstand highest thermal loads are being worked out within this SFB.

Combined Air and Steam Cooling of Large Frame Gas Turbines – Design, Features, Cooling Concept and Experience

Carlos Koeneke

The first commercial steam-cooled gas turbine was commissioned ten years ago in Takasago, Japan. Today, Mitsubishi’s fleet has grown to 20 units accumulating more than 440,000 actual operating hours as of March 2007. The high reliability and availability numbers reported have cleared the concerns associated with the technology and silenced sceptics. This is reflected in orders exceeding 36 new units that are currently in commissioning, installation or manufacturing for plants in Europe, USA and Asia.

Construction and Operation of Natural Draught Cooling Towers Made of Highly Acid-resistant Concrete

Achim Niepel, Roland Hüttl, Titus Klöker, Joachim Meyer und Dieter Busch

In 1999 the construction of the first cooling tower shell using highly acid-resistant concrete started at the RWE power station of Niederaußem. This type of concrete was developed after four years of research to avoid the necessary coating of the inner cooling tower shell due to the discharge of flue gases via cooling tower. The positive experience led RWE Power to build two more cooling towers of this type at the power station of Neurath and even order four more cooling towers for two planned power stations in the west and southwest of Germany.