Old Coal Fired Power Plants vs. Requirements in Flexibility & SOx Removal a Solution to Avoid Plant Retirement
(Room A)
29 Jun 17
11:00 AM
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12:30 PM
Tracks:
Track G - Modern Plant Management
The large combustion plants throughout the world are faced with more and more difficult decisions due to the grid requirement for more flexibility together with stricter emission level policies that are imposed by the legislation. The plants built in the last years, and the ones currently under construction are taking into account the emission & flexibility requirements during the design phase. For the older plants on the other hand the investment in the flue gas cleaning system needs to be done as a retrofit of the current system. These plants can have previously installed air pollution control systems which no longer can achieve the required emission level values as required by the legislation or are currently looking to invest in such systems. In this case the plants need to look at the retrofit option, which is a very complex and expensive solution. This paper presents a cost-efficient modular solution for large combustion plants to be able to extend their lifetime (when compared to the limits imposed by the derogation statutes), to reach the required acid pollutant limits imposed by the legislation, and to be able to get a fast payback for the CAPEX invested in the system. The main advantages of this solution are the very low space requirements, the modular design that the solution presents, and the very high flexibility regarding the response time to load changes and possible sorbents that can be used. The solution can be applied both for large combustion plants without any type of air pollution control system installed, as well as for plants with existing systems which can no longer comply with the new limits of the legislation.