Evaluation of Plant Performance during Biomass Co-firing in Pulverized Coal Power Plant

Abstract

The aims of this research were to evaluate effects of biomass co-firing to pulverized coal power plants and the variation of co-firing ratios on the plant efficiency related to power consumption of auxiliary system and flue gas characteristics such as production and component by process simulation based on the existing pulverized coal power plant. In this study, four kinds of biomass are selected as renewable fuel candidates for co-firing: wood pellet(WP), palm kernel shell(PKS), empty fruit bunch(EFB) and walnut shell(WS). Process simulation for various biomass fuels and co-firing ratios was performed using a commercial software. Gas side including combustion system and flue gas treatment system was considering with combination of water and steam side which contains turbines, condenser, feed water heaters and pumps. As a result, walnut shell might be the most suitable as co-firing fuel among four biomass since when 10% of walnut shell was co-fired with 90% of coal on thermal basis, flue gas production and power consumption of auxiliary systems were the smallest than those of other biomass co-firing while net plant efficiency was relatively higher than those of other biomass co-firing. However, with increasing walnut shell co-firing ratios, boiler efficiency and net plant efficiency were expected to decrease rather than coal combustion without biomass co-firing.