Revamping of a 120 Mwe pulverized coal

fired boiler with circulating fluidized bed

firing
P.Basu
Dalhousie University, Box 1000, Halifax, Canada B3J 2X4
Prabir.basu@dal.ca
J. Talukdar 1 *
Greenfield Research Inc., Box 25018, Halifax, Canada, B3M 4H4
utalukdar@hotmail.com

Introduction

The shortage of power and scarcity of capital funds made revamping of existing old plant
the most favored choice for many countries for adding more power to the grid. A power
project in a new site requires long environmental assessment and goes through many
approval processes. Furthermore, development of infrastructure and other facilities takes
considerable time. Lead time for capacity addition through a greenfield project, is
therefore, very long. Furthermore, the capital cost of additional power generation is
considerably higher especially for coal based new plant. In many thermal power plants
additional capacity can be built through upgrade of the existing equipment. This can be
done in a relatively short time and at a much lower installed cost.

In India, power plant boilers totaling more than 17,000 MW of installed capacity are 15
30 years old. In the ninth national plan, the Indian government projects an investment of
75000 crores (16 billion dollars) for renovation and modernization of the aging thermal
power plants. Older coal-fired plants were built for fairly good quality of coal with ash
content of 25-35%. Over the last few decades there has been a substantial decline in the
quality of coal available. Almost all of these old boilers use Pulverized coal (PC) firing
technology, which can cope neither with the declining quality of fuel nor with the
tightening environmental standards. As a result many of these boilers have seen much
decline in generation and environmental performance. For capacity addition, many of
these plants are being renovated using the same old pulverized coal firing technology.
Some projects allows for major modifications including replacement of mills, change of
burners, replacement of old combustion control systems etc while others restricts the
renovation to essential repairs of the existing equipment. However, as the plants
continues to use PC, the technology of 1930s, they do not enjoy fuel flexibility,

1
Presently with Ontario Power Generation
environment friendliness and other benefits of modern circulating fluidized bed
technology.

Major problems, an aging PC fired plant faces, may be summarized as follows:

1. Mills cannot produce the required thermal output with coals with a heating value lower
that designed for.
2. Mills cause more frequent shut down of the plant due to erosion of mill components,
which are expensive. Often it is difficult to procure spares of very old type of mills.
3. The smaller plants are required bear the burden of load fluctuation. The plants operate
inefficiently and use a large amount of expensive fuel oil to sustain flame at low load.
4. The coal supply is erratic. A plant designed for poor coal, at times, is forced to fire
good grade coal damaging superheaters or affecting the performance of the boilers.
5. The performance of electrostatic precipitator drops significantly due to poor
maintenance or excessive ash in the stack gas resulting in particulate emissions far
exceeding the stipulated limit.
6. Many of plants will find it difficult to meet new standards the Environment authority
are stipulating for thermal power plants.

Against this backdrop the owner of the plant and the Government requested a thorough
study of the technical and financial feasibilities of revamping one 120 MW with
environment friendly circulating fluidized bed revamping process.

Present Boiler
The present steam generator has a total generation capacity of 120 Mwe. It is a front fired
pulverized coal fired boiler. Figure 1 shows a sketch of the boiler before revamping. The
boiler is served by 4 ball mills with 3 running and one on stand-by. The draft plant
consists of 2 forced draft fans, 4 mill air fans and 2 induced draft fans. The furnace is of
tangent water wall construction. Its roof is formed out of steam-cooled tubes of the
superheater. The back-pass is split in two sections. One part of the back-pass houses a
part of the economizer and primary reheater, while the other section houses the primary
superheater and other section of the economizer. The platen superheater is placed in the
radiant section of the furnace, while the finishing superheater hangs just above the
furnace arch. The dust collecting device is an electrostatic precipitator (ESP) which has
been recently modified to for better performance. The coal handling plant consists of a
primary crusher and a secondary crusher for crushing the oversize from the primary
crusher. The fly ash collected from the ESP is transported by vacuum to a storage bin
from where it is sent to the ash pond by a slurry system. The bottom ash is mixed with
water at the ash pit and then sluiced to the ash pond.

Present plant performance

The plant has a low capacity factor due to inadequacy of the pulverized coal firing
equipment. The capacity factor of the boiler is reduced down to around 85% of the name
plate capacity mainly due to the deterioration in the quality of the coal received from the
mines, fouling of the pressure parts and leakage in the air heater tubes. Besides this, the
plant as a whole operates with a very low plant load factor. The main reasons for the low
plant load factor include inadequate supply of raw water, watery coal, and problems in
the generator. The auxiliary power consumption of the boiler is around 12 to 14%
compared to its design value of 9%. The boiler efficiency is around 75% mainly due to
the high flue gas temperature at the back-end of the boiler. The auxiliary fuel oil
consumption is around 5 ml/kw-hr while the emission levels of SO2 : 262.86 mg/nm3 ,
NOx 818.77 mg/nm3 and solid particulate matter 959.89 mg/nm3 . The plant is in dire
need of renovation for increasing its generation capacity as well as profitability of the
power plant while meeting new environmental standards. The owner offered all
assistance to assess the technical and financial viability of the circulating fluidized bed
firing option for revamping the boilers of this plant. This option is based on the process
of conversion of pulverized coal-fired boilers into circulating fluidized bed firing
developed by the first author (Basu & Halder 1989).

Circulating fluidized bed firing

The new option for renovation of aging pulverized coal (PC) fired boilers originates from
the observation of Basu (1987) that there is an overlap of values of basic design
parameters (Table 1) of PC and CFB firing techniques. This opens up an opportunity for
revamping of some types of PC boiler with CFB firing. This renovation option, referred
to as CFB revamping, offers the following major benefits:
1. It can raise the generation capacity of the boiler to its original plate rating even on
coal substantially inferior to what it was designed for.
2. It would meet most international air pollution standards and thereby protect the boiler
from future costly retrofits that new pollution standards would require
3. The boiler would be able to burn nearly any type of fuel available at the lowest price
with very little performance penalty. The plant owner can substantially reduce the
fuel cost by switching to opportunity fuels in a deregulated fuel market.
4. The boiler operator could, even in worst operating conditions, significantly reduce the
consumption of expensive fuel oil. This would provide insurance against escalating
fuel oil price.
5. It would entirely eliminate the pulverizing mills, which are often the main source of
boiler outage and de-rating.
6. Boiler operation would be much stable. It can tolerate up to several minutes of fuel
trip without requiring turbine trip or boiler stoppage.
7. The furnace safety would increase greatly due to the absence of flame and therefore
call for less expensive control system. In a PC boiler an elaborate flame supervisory
and burner management system is required for continuous monitoring, while CFB
boiler requires much simpler system for occasional use of the start up burner.

Circulating fluidized bed (CFB) firing is proven in more than 700 new boilers operating
around the world, on fuels with ash contents ranging from 1% to 67% and volatile
contents from 2% to 40%. Outside China, CFB boilers operate generally in much larger
capacities up to 300 MWe capacities. However, in China nearly 400 boilers operate in the
small size range of 35 t/h and 75 t/h range. A large number of PC boilers, built around
1950 and 1960s are in such small capacities. These boilers have lived their useful life. In
many cases it is no longer possible to get proper spares for their mills and burners to keep
them running efficiently. However, local socio-economic conditions and shortage of
capital funds do not allow either abandonment of the plants or replacement with modern
new boilers. CFB revamping can offer to some of these PC boilers a new lease of life.

Table 1. Comparison of main design parameters of pulverized coal (PC) firing and
circulating fluidized bed (CFB) firing furnaces.
Design parameters Units PC FIRING CFB FIRING
Grate release rate MW/m2 4.4 6.3 2.0 6.0
Volumetric release rate MW/ m2 0.15 .23 0.1 .25
Average furnace height m 27 40 15 - 40
Average heat absorption rate MW/ m2 0.05 .25 0.05 .17

From Table 1 we note that some PC boiler would have heat generation and heat
absorption capacities similar to those of CFB fired boilers. By using this similarity Basu
(1987) developed a mechanical design for adoption of CFB firing into the furnace of 150
MW PC boiler. Since this work and its subsequent recognition by professional
organizations (Basu & Halder, 1989) in the UK and USA this idea has been implemented
successfully in Czechoslovakia and few other countries. Greenfield Research Inc., a
technology company specializing in fluidized bed boilers, is working with its partners in
India on this initiative. One specific design based on this concept was developed for the
unit #1 of the Santaldihi Thermal Power Station and it is presented here.

Design issues
A pre-feasibility study of the boiler was carried out first to check the thermal duties of the
boiler. The revamping design tried to keep the new designed flue gas temperature at the
entry to the back-pass as close as possible to the original value. Some of the pressure
parts (steam generating tubes) had to be modified. So, a detail circulation check for the
water wall was carried out taking into account the heat release and absorption pattern in
case of CFB firing. Extra load due to the addition of CFB components like grid plate,
refractory and circulating solid material was taken into consideration while checking the
loadings on the existing columns and beams. Modifications necessary were incorporated.
The draft plant was checked for the adequacy for the supply necessary amount air at
required pressure for combustion. The scheme proposed was to take the entire air for the
boiler from the present forced draft fans. The necessary supply of fluidizing air will be
met from two new primary air fans which take suction from the forced draft fans and
boost its pressure. The secondary air for combustion will be taken from the four existing
mill air fans. The present fuel burners would be removed. Start up burners would be
provided in the air box for cold, hot start of the boiler. The arrangement of the boiler after
CFB revamping is as shown in the Figure 2.

Pressure parts arrangement

The lower part of the furnace is to be cut and replaced by a refractory lined tapered
section furnace. The upper part of the furnace needs to be modified but the back pass may
be left largely undisturbed (Figure 2). It was found that the existing water walls had
bulged out at a number of locations and there were overheating zones near to the burners.
It was, therefore, proposed to replace the whole combustion chamber walls by new
membrane wall panels, though it was not a specific CFB requirement. Heat balance of the
boiler furnace revealed that additional heating surface is required in the evaporator.
Additional wing walls in the combustion chamber would be provided to make up this
short fall. Also the remaining life assessment of the boiler revealed that the superheaters
and reheaters have run out of their useful operating life. So the superheaters would be
replaced by new panels of patented special designs.
Structural loading
CFB revamping required major modification of the furnace bottom. The bottom part of
the furnace is completely removed and replaced by a grid plate and wind box. It is also
covered with refractory up to the start up burner level. In case of CFB firing additional
weight of the solid mass circulating between the separator and furnace is to be supported.
It was uncertain if the present boiler super structure could support the additional load. So
the main combustion chamber was separated from the bottom section. The bottom part of
the furnace is supported from the ground; and connected to the top of the furnace by an
expansion joint.
CFB components
The CFB components comprise gas-solid separators and loop seal. A novel design was
developed by the Greenfield Research Incorporated, was tested in a 0.3 Mw hot pilot
plant and a 1 m x 0.25 m x 7 m cold test facility at Dalhousie University. The
performance was found satisfactory. Engineers from the original equipment manufacturer
checked the mechanical design of the components to suit to the adaptability to the present
boiler and manufacturing difficulty. The separators were designed such that they served
as both heat exchanger and gas-solid separator. The solids are returned to the combustion
chamber by four return legs and the loop seal all refractory lined with castable refractory.
The bottom ash is removed by means of two small fluidized bed classifier cum ash
coolers. It is attached to the front and side walls. The cooled ash is evacuated to a storage
tank by pneumatic conveying.
Performance comparison
The predicted operating performance of the boiler with that of the present one is
compared in Table 2. For financial analysis plant load factor, heat rate projected over the
book life of the plant etc. were considered. The net heat rate in case of CFB is slightly
higher than that for PC firing is due to higher auxiliary consumption. However, the
absence of pulverizer greatly reduces the forced outage and therefore increases the plant
load factor. This would more than compensate the difference in heat rate.
Table 2. Comparison of present performance with that projected for the CFB firing
PC (present) CFB (projected)
Fuel top size 75 micron 6000 micron
Firing temp. 1000-1250 C 0 8500C
Combustion efficiency 98% 99%
Auxiliary power 9-10% 10-11.5%
Oil consumption 5 ml/kw-hr 0.005 ml/kw-hr
Coal consumption 0.69 0.674
Reduction in emission of SOx none 90%*
Reduction in emission of NOx none 70%
Reduction in emission of Dust 20% 30-70%
*This is the normal reduction at Ca/S ratio 2 and for >1% sulfur in coal.
Emission
There will be substantial improvement in the emission performance of the boiler by CFB
firing for the following reasons.
1. In CFB firing mode a major part of the ash will be drained from the furnace as bed ash.
Only a fraction (30-70%) of the total ash will go the existing ESP. Furthermore, coal feed
size in the revamped boiler would be less than 6000 micron. So, the average size of the
fly ash would be much larger than that in the original PC firing where the fuel size was
about 75 micron. Larger particle size of fly ash and reduced dust loading together
substantially reduce the emission of dust through the stack.
2. The maximum combustion temperature would be 850 C where the thermal NOx cannot
be generated. Furthermore the staged addition of the combustion air will also reduce the
oxidation of the small amount of fuel nitrogen. So, the nitric oxide emission is estimated
to reduce down to 50-200 ppm. This is estimated from the work of Pyropower (Hiltunen,
1988).
3.No additional limestone injection system is proposed due to the negligible amount of
sulfur in the coal. However, some reduction in the sulfur dioxide emission is anticipated
due to calcium oxide content of the coal-ash.

Basis of Evaluation
A detail remnant life assessment of the entire plant and that of one boiler was carried out
to determine what is required to improve the overall performance of the plant. Besides
the boiler several other common areas of the boiler plant needed modification in order to
meet the load factor requirement. Following three alternative schemes for renovation of
the boilers at the present power station were examined for economic assessment.
a) CFB Revamping : One boilers will be revamped to circulating fluidized bed firing and
necessary modifications will be carried out for the balance of plant to match with the
plant load factor.

b) Conventional Revamping : One boiler will be revamped using new mills and burners
etc. to match with the new coal specification. Necessary modifications will be carried out
on the rest of the plant
c) Repair and maintenance: Minor repair and maintenance as suggested by the remnant
life assessment will be carried out

The financial analysis has been carried out taking into account both the operating costs
and capital investment required.

Operating Cost
The operating cost has been calculated taking into account all the expenses like fuel, oil,
lubricants, operation and maintenance cost, purchased power etc. The escalation rate for
the fuel, operation and maintenance, purchased power has been also taken into account.
The operating cost over the book life of the plant is consistently lower than that for PC
firing option primarily due to substantially reduced oil consumption.
Capital cost
The capital cost for revamping of the boiler was worked out in cooperation with the OEM
company. The basic cost of renovation of the boiler was found to be similar to that of
comprehensive conventional PC revamping (Figure 3). The pressure part modification
required for CFB revamping is much higher than that for PC option as the latter did not
require change of the entire water wall. However, non-pressure part cost of PC
revamping option is higher due to the cost of mills. Following factors favored lower basic
cost for the CFB revamping option.

1. Replacement of the Mills or its major components, which was necessary to increase the
generation to its original name plate value is the single most important cost in
comprehensive PC revamping. This cost is absent in CFB revamping option as the latter
does not require mills.

2.Modern burners management system and furnace supervisory safety system are very
expensive components of the boiler control package. The relatively simple combustion
control system of CFB firing does not require the above systems.

3. The CFB revamping design worked around the existing structure. As such it did not
require any change in boiler superstructure, foundation or boiler drum. Thus a substantial
savings in cost and downtime was seen here.

The cost of renovation of rest of the plant was taken from an estimate prepared by the
plant owner. The capital investment for the CFB revamping is found to be more than that
for bare minimum repairs and maintenance (RLA) option, but the capital cost for CFB
revamping of the boiler is similar to that of major PC revamping where both mills and
burners are changed. Figure 3 shows the capital cost of different options by splitting them
in pressure parts and non-pressure parts category. This is the bare cost without any taxes
and duties or engineering fee. In this instance the cost for CFB revamping was slightly
lower. Total capital cost includes the cost of revamping, present book value of the plant,
prepaid royalties, inventory capital, pre production cost, working capital etc.
Power cost
The cost of generation is calculated on discount cash flow method taking into account the
debt to equity ratio of 3:1. Straight line depreciation has been considered over the book
life of the plant. The booked life of the revamped boiler is taken as 10 years for repaired
boilers where 20 years for revamped boilers. It shows the cost of electricity after
considering all carrying charges, depreciations, taxes, return on investments but without
any credit for environmental compliance. is lowest in case of CFB revamping option
(Figure 4). While the difference between R&M and CFB option is very clear, that
between PC and CFB options is small and within the margin of estimation error.
However, once a credit for superior environmental is given the bus bar cost of CFB
option would be decidedly lower that for the PC option.

Conclusion
The study, carried out in consultation with the owner, and the original equipment
manufacturer shows that
1. CFB revamping is technically viable for the specific 120 MW PC boiler.
2. The Basic cost of CFB revamping is similar to that of PC revamping
3. The overall generation cost for CFB option is also lower than those for other
alternatives even without any compensation for its capacity for burning lower grade of
coal.
This gives a new direction to the revamping of old boilers in achieving the name
plate capacity of the boiler even while firing a lower grade fuel than the design coal. Also
there is a provision for firing coal with higher sulfur content. As shown in the results
above, there is reduction in the annual operating cost.

Acknowledgement:
The work, reported above, was carried out in 1996 with the technical contribution of
ABB ABL, who helped evaluate the technical feasibility of the design and prepare the
cost estimate. A considerable help was received from Mr. D. Ganguly of West Bengal
State Electricity Board. This work has been subsequently revisited and refined with the
assistance of the Canadian International Development Agency. Results of the latter work
will be published at a later date.

References:
A New Concept for Operation of Pulverized-Coal Fired Boiler using Circulating
Fluidized Bed-firing, Basu, P., Halder, P.K., Trans. of the ASME, October 1989, Vol.
111, pp. 626-630

Operation of an Existing Pulverized-Coal-Fired Boiler as a Circulating Fluidized Bed

Boiler A Conceptual Study, Journal of the Institute of Energy, June 1987, pp. 77-83.

NOx abatement in Ahlstrom Pyroflow Circulating Fluidized Bed Boilers, Hiltunen, M,

J.T. Tang, Circulating Fluidized Bed Technology II, Pergamon Press, 1988, Ed. Basu, P.
F. Large, pp. 29-436