Abstracts - VGB PowerTech Journal 12/2016
Editorial: The future of power industry – a view on the globe
DI Peter Stettner
The power industry in Europe has been changing rapidly for years now. Market liberalisation, unbundling, single market, nuclear phase-out, renewables on the rise, and de-carbonisation are just a few parameters of a challenging business environment. One can ask, whether these are the conditions that apply elsewhere in the world or whether they are a kind of preview on future transitions out of Europe. Is Europe different?[morer...]
The role of energy supply in the industry 4.0
Jörg Rothermel
Energy supply is one important parameter for competitiveness of the energy intensive chemical industry. Secure energy supply offers an advantage but increasing energy costs are a threat for the competitiveness of the chemical industry in Germany as the chemical industry has the highest industrial energy demand. The chemical industry produces heat and a part of its electricity demand in own combined heat and power installations. The chemical industry will also need a competitive energy supply in the future although production increase will be less high.
Requirements for modern coal-fired power plants
Marc D. Jedamzik
An environmentally compatible and economic operation of a coal-fired thermal power plant today necessitates handling the deployed fuel in a maximum efficient manner, adhering to the legally required emission figures and having preferably low operating costs. Introduction of the revised European limits for emissions as from 2017 will once again markedly raise the technical hurdles for all power plants in Europe. The article concerns itself with the different requirements placed on the design of a new, state-of-the-art bituminous coal unit in Kozienice (Poland) compared to that of new, stateof- the-art lignite units in Turow (Poland) and Ptolemais (Greece).
Study on different impacts of renewable energy sources on the German power supply system
Florian Gutekunst, Simon Remppis, Michael van der Straeten, Michael Salzinger and Hendrik Lens
Due to the political promotion of electricity generation from renewable energy sources, the European and, in particular, the German power supply systems are subject to major changes. Different impacts of a high share of renewable power generation on grid and power plant operation and on the power market are analysed. To this end, the simulation models that have been used are introduced together with a description of related assumptions and boundary conditions. Furthermore, various simulation results are shown, regarding the current power supply system as well as future scenarios.
From power plant school to international energy technology training center – big and small innovations revisited
Heinrich Nacke and Hans-Werner Otte
KRAFTWERKSSCHULE E.V. (KWS), German for KWS PowerTech Training Center, is almost 60 years old and has been calling the city of Essen at the heart of Germany’s Ruhr region home since its inception. Today, KWS is a globally active advanced training institution. Since the beginning, KWS’s task has been the organisation and implementation of basic and advanced vocational training in all fields of power plant technology. It is shown how a single-purpose vocational training school evolved into an institution that has been constantly adapting to the many changes affecting the power industry in order to become an all-around service provider in power plant technology training.
Doosan Babcock biomass conversion technology applied to Lynemouth
Graham Welford and Alan Millar
Switching from coal to renewable woody biomass is a low cost way for old coal stations to meet new EU environmental legislation with a low carbon solution, whilst extending the life of these valuable assets by 10 or more years. Biomass may be applied in 100?% full conversions or co-fired with coal in any proportion. The biomass conversion at the Lynemouth power station is presented as well as co-firing technology applied at other sites. The focus is on the work needed within the boiler house, the design process and resulting scheme.
Optimisation of the firing system of existing lignite-fired power plants
Stefan Hamel, Paolo Schmidt-Holzhausen and Hans Thierbach
Optimisation of firing systems in existing plants today is an extensive challenge. Between requirements of future operation and specified process and geometrical boundary conditions, the task is to develop an optimised solution for the client but also for the supplier. Fundamental aspects relevant for modernisation of lignite firing systems are discussed. Starting with a description of the general technical approach, concrete measures for optimisation of lignite firing system of several previous projects are presented.
Low NOx lignite coal firing
Paul Alps, Felix Hellwig, Horst Müller and Reinhard Leithner
A CFD-based analysis of primary NOx-reduction measures is presented. Different measures in lignite firing systems are simulated with 3D-CFD-code FLOREAN developed in the Institute of Energy and Process Systems Engineering of TU Braunschweig and since many years used for simulations performed for manufacturers and utilities and also used for research and lecturing. Well known primary measures like air staging and fuel compression in the furnace as well as within the burners are simulated and discussed. In addition, an enhanced flue gas recirculation is presented.
Determing of firings and flames with new measurement techniques
Steffen Griebe, Hemut Bischoff, Thomas Brunne, Gerd Stecklina and Frank Pache
Due to the increasing efforts on the operation of boilers with frequent load changes, the use of changing fuels to substitute fuels there is the requirement to keep the initial state of the combustion within the scope of the design over the whole lifetime. Within the scope of investigations on several boiler units are the suitability of two measurement techniques – flame detector and NIR-thermography – to determine the initial state of an overhauled combuster. It becomes apparent that basically with the flame detector and the NIR-thermography results of the evaluation and assessment of the initial state of the combustion can be gained. The findings could apply to combustors of other power plants successfully
Online measurements of fireside high temperature corrosion in power plants with membrane wall sensors
Josef Langen, Andreas Müller, Jochen Ströhle and Bernd Epple
The Institute for Energy Systems and Technology of the TU Darmstadt develops corrosion measurement systems especially for evaporator walls of lignite- and hard coal-fired power plants. The fireside high temperature corrosion is determined time resolved by applying electrochemical measurement techniques. Therefore a new membrane wall sensor was developed which is passively cooled by the membrane wall and can be located in arbitrary positions of evaporator walls. To qualify the measurement technique for measurements in power plants, various tests were performed in lab-scale test facilities. Here, a high sensitivity with respect to a small content of corrosive gases (H2S) in a synthetic flue gas could be shown. Furthermore, corrosion measurements were performed in two power plants of which one has a strong corrosive atmosphere at evaporator walls and the other one has a low corrosive atmosphere. Accordingly high and low corrosion signals were measured in the two power plants, respectively.
Recent efforts for technical performance enhancement of turbo-generators
Jens Möbius and Julien Tromenschlager
The power generation market is facing unprecedented challenges which are heavily impacting the economics and conventional operation of today’s power plants. Turbogenerators directly contribute to power plants’ economics and therefore must be optimised as much as possible respectively to their technical performances, high availability, short maintenance time, reliability, grid code compliance and of course investment cost. Recent efforts that have been made regarding enhancement of Turbogenerators’ technical performances will be described in this paper and concrete application examples will be given.
Improved condition monitoring and diagnostics for turbine generators operating at flexible grids with high amount of renewable energy
Jürgen R. Weidner
The new flexible load regime moves the generator operation mode into a high number of start-stop cycles and fast load changes with steep ramps. For generators, especially the older ones, this means higher stress and accelerated ageing with an increased risk of sudden damages and unplanned outages. An online monitoring system is presented combining the information on partial discharge (PD) activity, stator end winding vibration and air gap flux measurement with actual operation data of the machine to create a condition assessment of stator and rotor windings. Trending information of characteristic parameter allow early indication of arising defects. The monitoring system helps to avoid unexpected trips and to optimise outages by identifying issues in advance.
Benefits of multi-pollutant catalyst technology for combustion turbine power plants in the USA
Christopher Bertole and Scot Pritchard
As combustion turbines become more highly utilised to meet power generation needs, the demand for reliable performance across a wide variety of operating conditions has also increased. Wider load flexibility, enhanced operational efficiency, and lower maintenance are all desired with continued assured environmental compliance. Advanced Multi-Pollutant Catalyst, commercialised by CORMETECH, Inc. as Meteor™ provides key benefits to address the changing dynamics of the industry. Specifically, the multi-pollutant catalyst located at one vertical plain simultaneously controls NOx, CO, VOCs and ammonia slip to compliance levels. Functional background of the catalyst, test data and case studies are presented.
Boxberg III: More than 20 years of positive experience with metallic FGD scrubbers
Volker Wahl, Rolf Streib and Volker Schollbach
The Units N and P of the Power Plant Boxberg have been modernised and equipped with new environmental technology in 1996. The wet limestone scrubbing process was selected for the flue gas desulfurisation system. The chemical environment in such FGD systems is very corrosive. For the first time the scrubbers were completely made of hot rolled clad material with alloy 59 as cladding material. Alloy 59 was a new nickel alloy developed by VDM Metals. With only Nickel, Chromium and Molybdenum as alloying elements alloy 59 seemed to be the ideal corrosion protection against condensating sulfuric acid and chlorides. By using hot rolled cladded plates the thickness of the corrosion resistant alloy could be reduced to 2 mm without any compromise regarding quality and corrosion resistance. More than 20 years later the material concept has fully met the expectations and was an essential factor for the 100?% availability of the FGD system.