Introduction

The Lakvijaya coal power station is the largest thermal power station in Sri Lanka, which is located
in Norocholai, Puttalam, on the southern-end of the Kalpitiya Peninsula. The construction of the
plant was done in 3 separate stages; each contained generating capacity of 300MW. Construction of
the first phase of the facility began on 11 May 2006 and commissioned the first phase on 22 March
2011, with 300-megawatt power generation capacity stating its name as the first coal power plant in
Sri Lanka. According to the Ceylon Electricity Board, the US$455 million first phase generates
nearly 1.7 TWh of electricity annually. The plant is connected to the grid via 115 km (71 mi) 220kilovolt transmission line to Veyangoda. By today Lakvijaya coal power station contributes 900MW
of the electrical power demand in Sri Lanka.
At the moment of field visit, one generator turbine unit (the first commissioned one) was out for the
routine maintenance and hence the observations could be done closely and in detailed.

Coal and fuel handling of the plant

Although the main fuel is bituminous coal, at the start up and shut down auto diesel is used in the
boilers. In order to deliver the diesel to the boiler, feed pumps are used and to deliver the coal,
conveyer belts are used.
The plant consumes 110 tons of coal per hour to produce 300MW. The normal operation of the
station is done by coal, But at the start up and shut down is done by diesel. The high quality and low
Sulphur content coal is imported from Indonesia by using panama type ships. The unit cost of the
electricity produced in the plant is about 9/=.
Coal is currently being imported from Indonesia as it has a low sulphur content compared to coal
from India. Residual fly ash from power generation which is about 45 tons per hour is bought for
cement production. Coal condition that is used in this plant is shown below;

Moisture Content
Sulphur Content
Ash Content

- <12 %
- 0.2-1.0 %
- <15 %

For coal storage and supply to the boiler, there are 5 coal bunkers whereas only 4 bunkers are used at
a time, one is kept standby. Coal feeder is used to control and calculate the flow rate of coal. In coal
pulverizer, the coal is grinded into powder. Using hot primary air, coal powder is fed into the

furnace. There are 5 layers burn coal. Four Pipes for each layer. However at start up oil guns in oil
layers are triggered.

Boiler
The specialty of this boiler used in Lakvijaya plant, is that the water tube wall is used to keep water
inside the boiler. The whole boiler unit consists with burners, super heaters, re heaters, economizer
and the air pre heater. The following chart shows a flow diagram of the equipment connected to the
furnace boiler.
Since furnace and boiler unit is a complex system, firing control is also highly important. Firing is
done using sparking plugs to start the ignition. Five coal layers and three oil layers are placed inside
the furnace. Tangential firing is done and the burning area can be changed by rotating 60 degree
angle of oil guns.
Flame detecting cameras are used to detect the flame inside the furnace. Air to fuel ratio is kept at a
constant of 2.56 by changing flow rates of air and fuel.
Turbine
For the three generation units, three 300MW
turbine units are used. All are 3000 rpm and
sub-critical, condensing steam turbines. In
each turbine unit, three types of parts, as high
pressure, low pressure and intermediate
pressure. HP Turbine, LP Turbine and IP
Turbine are lie on the same shaft to which are
directly coupled to the generator and the generator and turbine shafts cannot be decoupled easily.
Hence the generators cannot be worked in syncon mode.
Generator
Generator specifications are as follows;

Manufacturer
Type
Rated Power
Rated Voltage
Rated Current
Speed
No of Poles

- HEC-China
- Cylindrical Rotor Type
- 353 MVA
- 20 kV
- 10.190 A
- 3000 rpm
-2

Excitation Voltage
Excitation Current

- 364 A
- 2.5 kA

The cooling is done differently than in the hydro power plant generators. As these generators are in
the category of turbo (high speed) generators, hydrogen is used to cool the generators. It cools down
the generator rotor efficiently and effectively. De-ironized water is used to cool the stator.
Excitation system
At the start up, DC battery bank is used to provide excitation current. After starting the generator,
self-excitation method is used, using excitation transformer. 2500 A DC current is used as excitation
current and excitation voltage is 365 V.

Generator and Unit Auxiliary transformers

Generator transformer is used to step up the
generation voltage of 20kV into 220kV for the
transmission purpose.
UAT will step-down the generated output voltage
(20kV) to 6 kV for the auxiliary power
requirements of the plant while the generator is
running. UAT provides power to two separate buses which powered the high voltage for motors,
auxiliary transformers and electrical auxiliary during normal operation
Generator transformer

Unit

Rated power
Rated voltage

360 MVA
(242 8*1.25%) kV - 20kV

(UAT)
50/31.5-31.5MVA
20/6.3-6.3 kV

cooling

ONAN

Vector group

ODAF (100%)
YNd1

(30%)/ONAF

auxiliary

transformer

(60%)/ ONAF (100%)/ ONAN (67%)

Dyn11-yn11

Conclusion
The generation transformers which transform the generation voltage to 220kV transmission voltage
are connected to a 220kV GIS. Two types of transformers are used to step down voltage to 6kV.
UATs transform 20kV to 6kV and start up standby transformers are used to transform 220kV to 6kV

which are connected to the 220kV GIS. The purpose of having two methods to energize the 6kV bus
bar is for the reliability as most of the feed pumps, conveyer belts should have the continuous supply
of 6kV.

The 400 V supply which is needed for the normal

operations of the plant is supplied by stepping
down the two 6 kV bus bars. Also there is a special
400 V emergency bus bar which is connected to the
400 V emergency diesel generator of 642 MW. The
emergency bus bar is normally energized from a
step down transformer which is connected to the 6
kV bus bar. Very essential loads such as battery
charger and UPS are connected to the emergency bus bar. Since the power supply for the distribution
control centre and the SCADA system has to be continuous, it is connected with both UPS and a
separate step-down transformer from 6kV bus bar.

FIELD VISIT REPORT

(Lakvijaya Power Station)

Name

: P.M.Abeyrathne

Index no

: 110008R

Department

: Electrical Engineering

Submitted on : 11/11/2015