POWER PLANT EFFICIENCY

NEWSLETTER

The Monthly Newsletter No.2 April 2010

Boiler Combustion and Performance Optimization

workshop
I N S I D E The CII-Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre [CII-Godrej GBC] is promoting the
ŸBoiler Combustion and concept of “Make Indian power plants world class”. The main objective is to
Performance Optimization facilitate continuous performance improvement in Indian thermal power plants and
achieve world class standards. To help Indian thermal power plants to identify and
workshop
implement the performance improvement projects, CII-Godrej GBC is facilitating
development of service providers network.
ŸOptimization of soot
blowers for performance The U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE) and its National Energy Technology
improvement in Thermal Laboratory (NETL) and the India mission of the U.S. Agency for International
power plants Development (USAID / INDIA) are supporting the initiatives of CII-Godrej GBC.
As part of information dissemination programme, CII-Godrej GBC has organized a
three-day workshop on “Boiler combustion and performance optimization” from 26
to 28 October 2009 in Hyderabad.

The workshop was addressed by the following:

1. Mr Stephen K Storm & Mr Jacob W Stover, Storm Technologies Inc, USA
2. Mr A K Arora, CenPEEP, NTPC
3. Mr George Bennett, Paragon Air heater technologies &
4. Mr S Karthikeyan, CII-Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre

About 40 participants from various Indian thermal power plants have participated in
the workshop. During the workshop, comprehensive boiler testing procedures and
performance improvement opportunities are discussed. Some of them are Boiler
combustion & performance optimisation, typical plant challenges, applying the
essentials in combustion optimisation, Pulverizers and optimisation techniques,
fuel & ash quality impacts, air heater performance, performance improvement
opportunities in power plant auxiliaries and case studies implemented in Indian
thermal power plants.
During the workshop, an exclusive interaction session was also organised for the
participants to discuss about specific problems in their Power plants. Some the
concepts discussed during the workshop related to Boiler combustion &
performance optimisation are covered in the article presented by Mr Stephen K
Storm in Power plant efficiency News letter -1 published during March 2010.
Overall, the programme was well received by the participants from Indian thermal
power plants and majority of them rated as excellent. Based on the feedback from
the participants, as part of the information dissemination programme CII-Godrej
GBC is planning to organise similar workshops on other aspects of thermal power
plants in future.

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Optimization of soot blowers for
performance improvement in
Thermal power plants
Background
The boiler performance including its ability to meet full
load, auxiliary power consumption, net plant heat rate,
availability of the unit, operation and maintenance cost
etc. are affected significantly by the fuel characteristics.
Coal firing in the furnace form different kinds of deposits
on the boiler tubes. To improve the performance and
thermal efficiency of the boiler, it is important to remove
the deposits periodically and maintain the heating surface
clean.
Boilers are designed such that the radiation and
convective zone heat transfer surfaces absorb the
released heat proportionately. Any deviation in heat
transfer in radiation and convection zones, will affect the
function of feed water preheating in the economizer,
steam super heating in LT super heater, platen super
heater and final super heater. This will result in reduction in
boiler operating efficiency.
Wall Blowing System
Wall blowers are provided as a part of Soot Blowing
System in coal fired boilers. They are operated
periodically to clean the water walls free of ash deposit
particles. Depending upon the site conditions the
operation of the wall blowers is decided.
In majority of the plants these wall blowers are operated in
a pre determined periodic fashion. All the wall blowers
provided in a typical 210 MW boiler furnace are operated
around 90 minutes during the period of blowing.
In conventional wall blowing, during the period of wall
blowing and some period after wall blowing, the Super
heater spray reduces to a certain value due to removal of
ash deposits. The effect of cleaning is not long lasting due
to the deposit of fresh ash particles on the furnace water
walls and hence the Super heater spray keeps rising until
next wall blowing.
The disadvantages of the periodic wall blowing are as
below;
Periodical operation of the soot blowing system
F system installed in one of the 210 MW thermal power
leads to significant variation in super-heater
and re-heater spray.
Operating blowing system on a clean boiler tube
F
surfaces leads to increase in erosion rate. This
increases in boiler tube failures
Increase in auxiliary steam consumption due to
F
unnecessary soot blowing operation
Optimizing the conventional soot blowing system
The conventional soot blowing system in a typical 210 MW
thermal power generating unit, consists of 56 blowers
arranged in four elevations. Out of four rows, three rows
are installed above the firing zone and one row below the
firing zone.
This system operates sequentially once in eight hours. All
soot blowers are operated three times a day. This
operation requires about 3.30 Tons of steam per cycle.
In conventional wall blowing system, the Boiler operator
can optimize the soot blowing system and keep the
furnace free of ash deposits or without much slagging by
the following guidelines.
1. Provide more excess air if found slagging
2. Keep all the wall blowers in operating condition
and operate them on need based rather than
conventional system
3. Selective soot blowing can be opted for
minimizing the over blowing based on the
superheater and reheater spray quantity
4. In some of the cases the operating pressure of the
soot blower can also be reduced to optimize the
effect of soot blowing
The above recommendations are general. One has to
periodically monitor furnace condition and make case
specific changes accordingly. .
Smart wall blowing system
To over come the above mentioned limitations associated
with the conventional wall blowing systems intelligent or
smart wall blowing systems (SWBS) are installed in
boilers. This case study deals with a smart wall blowing
plant.
In this System, the wall blowers are activated using the
signals from heat flux sensors, which sense reduction in
heat transfer rate due to the ash deposits on the furnace
water walls.
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The degree, pattern and the periodicity of ash deposits on
the water walls of boiler furnace mainly depends on type &
quantity of coal fired, mills in operation, burner tilt, excess
air, etc. Smart wall blowing system activates the blowers
automatically for cleaning the ash deposits considering
the above variations. In Smart system, the SH spray is kept
within certain level. Smart system keeps the boiler furnace
clean for better heat absorption by water walls which in
turn reflects on the SH spray.
Smart wall blowing system consists of an electronic logic
system interfaced with existing normal blowing system.
The system consists of water wall heat flux sensors
installed in between the wall blowers. These sensors have
built in thermocouples.
SWBS establishes automatic operation of wall blowers to
achieve optimum heat absorption in the furnace and
reduces supherheater & reheater spray. The operation is
controlled based on super heater spray flow and furnace
heat absorption at different zones.
The heat flux sensors are installed in between the wall
blowers in four elevations. There are eight heat-flux
sensors in each wall and totally 32 sensors are mounted
on four sides of the water wall. The typical arrangement of
the heat-flux sensor is shown below:
The two ends of the sensors are exposed to the flame
radiation and the stable cooling waterside respectively.
Sensors continuously give output proportional to the
absorbed heat flux.
The sensors are connected to the remote SWBS control
panel positioned in the control room through transmitters.
The SWBS control panel is connected to the conventional
soot blowing system. It is an add-on facility to the existing
soot blowing system.
Operation of Smart wall blowing system
The heat flux changes continuously depending on the
thickness and heat transfer properties of the deposits. The
actual heat flux is measured continuously by the heat flux
sensor and monitored with the dynamic set point.
The super-heater spray requirement triggers the
operation. The High and low super-heater sprays are set
to desired values. The system either starts or stops the
blowing sequence when the spray crosses the highest /
lowest set points respectively.
When there is a reduction in the heat flux below the
dynamic set value of a particular sensor the adjacent two
blowers are actuated automatically. The sequence of heat
flux comparison with the set values and the blower by
passing/ blowing continues in a sequential manner from
wall to wall until the SH spray flow reaches the low set
point.
The blowing operation resumes in auto mode when the
SH spray flow crosses the high set point with a
comparison of heat flux with the set point. The system
maintains super heater spray flow within a narrow band.
The trend of super heater spray control with conventional
blowing system and SWBS is shown below.
TIME IN MINUTES
Each blower operates once or twice or thrice in a day
depending on the heat flux value. Blowers, which are not
operated in the first two cycles, are operated compulsorily
in the third cycle, irrespective of their heat flux value.
Hence, each blower operates at least once in a day and
avoids permanent adherence of the deposits on water
wall surface.
Smart wall blowing system is recommended, if the furnace
is slagging (or) superheater and reheater sprays are high
during normal operation (or) high ash coal is used
frequently (or) water wall tubes near wall blower area
erode faster and are replaced frequently.
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Benefits of the project
The benefits of the smart wall blowing system are as
below.
1. Avoids accumulation of deposits
2. Maintains net total furnace heat absorption at
optimum level
3. Improves heat rate / cycle efficiency
4. Lowers peak furnace gas temperatures
5. reduces the steam consumption by about 55-60%
compared to conventional wall blowing system
6. Reduces opacity excursion & improves flame
stability
7. Lowers thermal Nox due to reduced gas
temperature
8. Offers less wear & tear of equipment, steam
requirement, auxiliary consumption and
operational cost
Financial Analysis
The annual savings achieved in a 210 MW unit is
Rs 52.5 Lakhs. This will vary significantly depending
upon the coal characteristics and the site conditions.
The approximate investment required for installation of
Smart wall blowing system is Rs 265 Lakhs.
Replication potential
This project has high replication potential in majority of the
captive and utility thermal power plants in India.
Considering the present installed capacity of the coal
based thermal power plants in India and the typical
operating conditions the replication potential of
installation of smart wall blowing system is about
Rs 7500 Lakhs.
For further information, Please contact
S Karthikeyan
s.karthikeyan@cii.in
About CII & CII Godrej GBC
CII is a non-government, not-for-profit, industry led and
industry managed organization, playing a proactive role in
India's development process. Founded over 113 years
ago, it is India's premier business association, with a direct
membership of over 6500 organizations from the private
as well as public sectors, including SMEs and MNCs, and
an indirect membership of over 90,000 companies from
around 350 national and regional sectoral associations.
Government of Andhra Pradesh, CII and House of Godrej
with the technical support of USAID have launched the CII-
Sohrabji Godrej Green Business centre to offer much
need “Green Services” to Indian industry.
Cll-Godrej GBC is a Centre of Excellence in Energy
Efficiency, Green Buildings, Renewable Energy, Water,
Environment & Recycling and Climate Change activities in
India.
CII-Godrej GBC is promoting the concept of “Make Indian
thermal power plants world class”. The main objective is
facilitating continuous performance improvement in
thermal power plants and there by achieving world class
standards. As part of this, CII-Godrej GBC is also
facilitating development of service providers network for
Indian thermal power plants.
Supported by USDOE, NETL & USAID/India
The U. S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Energy
Technology Laboratory (NETL) USA and the India Mission
of the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID/India) are supporting the initiatives of CII-Godrej
GBC for development of service providers network for
Indian thermal power plants.
This technical bulletin has been developed as part of the
information dissemination programme for the
development of service providers network for Indian
thermal power plants.
Survey No 64, Kothaguda Post, Near HITEC City,
Ranga Reddy Dist., Hyderabad - 500 084
Tel: +91 40 23112971-73, Fax: +91 40 23112837
www.greenbusinecentre.com
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