Power Magazine - July 2016

July 2016 • Vol. 160 • No.
BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY FOR THE GLOBAL GENERATION INDUSTRY SINCE 1882
Vol. 160 • No. 7 • July 2016
New Ways to Address

Environmental Issues
“Show Me” State Plant Wins

PRBCUG Plant of the Year
Can Coal Refuse Be
Environmentally Friendly?
New Reasons to Consider
Waste-to-Energy
Entergy’s 550 Megawatt Ninemile 6 CCGT power plant
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methodology. Working with the customer from pre-FEED through EPC and
commissioning ensures that we are working together towards a common goal.
Contact CB&I at +1 704 343 7500 to learn how our complete solutions can
benefit your next gas-fired power generation project.
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40M042016H
ON THE COVER
Opened in 1974 on the Navajo Nation,
the 2,250-MW Navajo Generating Sta-
tion burns Powder River Basin coal to
serve electric customers in Arizona, Ne-
vada, and California. It is operated by Salt
Established 1882 • Vol. 160 • No. 7 July 2016 River Project. Courtesy: Gail Reitenbach
SPEAKING OF POWER
Power’s Environmental Issues Then and Now 6
GLOBAL MONITOR
Rwanda’s Power Production Triumph over a “Killer Lake” 8
TVA Submits Pioneering Application for SMR Early Site Permit 9
THE BIG PICTURE: China’s Power Glut 10
China’s CAP1400 Clears IAEA Safety Assessment 12
One of the World’s Biggest Biomass-Fired CHP Plants Is Inaugurated 12
Employing Fuel Cells for Carbon Capture 13
POWER Digest 14
FOCUS ON O&M
Boiler Tube Failure Thermohydraulic Analysis 16
LEGAL & REGULATORY
Securing Pipeline Infrastructure for Gas-Fired Generation in New 8
England 18
By Glenn S. Benson and Walker Stanovsky, Davis Wright Tremaine
COVER FOCUS: ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

Generators Grapple with ELG Implementation 20
Early compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Effluent Limita-
tion Guidelines (ELGs) for steam electric power generating units has raised
new equipment, monitoring, operational, and labor issues that are proving
challenging for some plants.
Evaluating the Use of CEMS for Accurate Heat Rate Monitoring and
Reporting 24
If the Clean Power Plan survives legal challenges, many plants will be looking
for cost-effective ways to monitor heat rate. Electric Power Research Institute
researchers explain what they’ve learned about using continuous emissions
monitoring systems (CEMS) for just that purpose. 12
Simplify MATS Compliance with Particulate Matter Continuous Emission
Monitors 27
Four years into the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) compliance era,
enough historic data and improved monitors exist to potentially change the
particulate matter (PM) compliance strategy to one that uses a PM monitor
instead of quarterly PM stack testing.
Emissions Catalyst Issues for Fast-Start Combined Cycle Power Plants 31

Among the less-familiar consequences of frequent and faster starts at com-
bined cycle plants are challenges associated with fast start of the emissions
catalyst systems, especially given that best available control technology limits
required by regulations are not practical where cycling occurs.
Circulating Fluidized Bed Dry Scrubber Effectively Reduces Emissions 34

By taking an unconventional route, a small Midwest generator is meeting
emissions requirements and enjoying one of this industry’s top-performing
retrofit units for SO2 reduction.
34
|
July 2016 POWER www.powermag.com 1
Real-Time Environmental Data Integration Improves Air Quality
Reporting 37
As with so many other plant functions these days, greater operational com-
plexity in the environmental regulatory compliance realm requires new ways
of working. Real-time data integration and management can offer multiple
benefits.
Weighing the Environmental Impacts of Wind and Solar 40

Even renewable energy technologies have environmental impacts. As manu-
facturers and developers gain experience with wind and solar technologies,
they’re also working to minimize negative consequences.
Avoiding Wildlife Impacts From Renewable Energy in Europe 43

Europe, which has a longer history than the rest of the world with renew-
ables—especially offshore wind and marine power projects—is also a leader
52 in determining how to minimize danger to creatures on land and in water.
SPECIAL REPORT: PRB COAL

PRB Coal Users’ Group Plant of the Year: Ameren’s Rush Island Energy
Center 52
The Powder River Basin Coal Users’ Group gave its top award this year to a
plant recognized for innovation and implementation of “best practices and
best available technologies” for burning PRB coal.
FUELS
The Coal Refuse Dilemma: Burning Coal for Environmental Benefits 56
Using waste coal—which has been piling up from hundreds of years of min-
ing—as a fuel can reduce the environmental damage these piles create, but
the low-grade feedstock still faces environmental and economic challenges.
56 Energy from Waste: Greenhouse Gas Winner or Pollution Loser? 59

Power market economics in the U.S. have not been friendly to waste-to-en-
ergy plants, but new environmental data—as well as state and federal poli-
cies—could help spur new growth in the sector.
Understanding and Mitigating Metallurgical Effects of Coal Blending

and Switching 63
Many plants change fuel sources for environmental and economic reasons,
but unless you understand the consequences of such changes, you could add
new operational and maintenance headaches.
COMMENTARY
China’s Coal Industry: Status and Outlook 68
By Dr. Niu Dongxiao, Song Zongyun, and Xiao Xinli, North China Electric
Power University
63
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SPEAKING OF POWER
Power’s Environmental
Issues Then and Now
iscussions about environmental is- Engineering Phases of Pittsburgh’s Smoke The hoteliers’ magazine was concerned
D sues related to power plants and the

regulations governing their opera-
tion are as old as the industry, I discov-
Problem.” He notes the institute previ-
ously addressed smoke’s “damage to laun-
dry, buildings, vegetation and its psychic
about the added cost of paying for “li-
censed” men to operate the hotels’ steam
heat systems. POWER responded: “Taking
ered while thumbing through the bound effect upon individuals.” The latest bul- the worst figures cited, it would cost a ho-
July through December 1914 issues of letin addresses the “causes and abatement tel $450 a month instead of $25 to $50.
POWER. The specifics of the environmen- of the smoke evil” and finds that of 152 Is not that a terrible price to pay for the
tal concerns have become more detailed plants observed, “the underfed type of increased safety of its guests during the
and complex as scientific knowledge, stoker [gave] smokeless combustion when winter? If the journal we are criticizing
monitoring technologies, and mitigation properly handled.” The editorial adds, fairly reflects the attitude of its field, the
solutions advance. However, the general “One cannot read the report without again editor of this paper hopes to do all his
arguments—environmental control versus being reminded that plenty of available traveling in the summer, when he can stop
efficiency, for example—and the human cheap fuel is sometimes an evil as well as at a hotel without feeling that he is sleep-
nature demonstrated in the debates, are a blessing to a large city, for as long as it ing over a gunpowder mine.”
remarkably similar 102 years later. is cheap, gross negligence and resulting As you can see, warranted sarcasm is
smoke accompany its use.” Similar argu- nothing new in POWER editorials. And,
Smoke and Ashes ments about the downside of cheap fuels because my father was a licensed boiler
Several articles in 1914 addressed mini- continue to this day. operator for an educational institution’s
mizing smoke from power and steam Though ash management has become an campus at the beginning of his career,
plants both big and small (and there were especially sticky problem given recent reg- I’m grateful that sensible laws eventually
more of the latter). ulatory action (see “Coal Combustion Re- passed.
The August 11 issue ran a one-page sto- siduals Rule Compliance Strategies” in last Although today’s regulation of the
ry titled “Rules for Firing without Smoke,” month’s issue), ash-handling has always power industry is broader and more com-
with this synopsis: “How to build, clean been a matter of concern, at least from plex—one can’t see immediate effects of
and bank fires. In carrying a thick fire the a material-handling perspective. One let- airborne mercury pollution in the way one
coal is dumped in piles instead of being ter in 1914 commented on an article that can see bodies maimed by plant explo-
spread over the grate. The volatile matter had described a new vacuum ash-handling sions—similar cost-benefit debates con-
is distilled in amounts which the furnace system. The writer calculated operating tinue. Most recently, they’ve focused on
can care for and less smoke is produced.” and depreciation costs and concluded the regulation of CO2 emissions. (Back in
This editor’s note was included at the end: that with few exceptions, “handling with 1914, the only concern about CO2 was fig-
“It is to be remembered that Mr. Monnett wheelbarrows where the length of travel uring out why it might be too low in flue
is smoke inspector of Chicago and that the is moderate” was economically preferable. gas, and how to improve combustion.)
rules in the above, as well as the recom- A few issues later, another reader took is-
mendations in the previous articles of this sue with those calculations—the sort of Always Room for Improvement
series, apply particularly to conditions in commentary that these days takes place The July 21, 1914, issue of POWER in-
the region where they burn the soft Illi- in the online comments section of POWER cluded this random, one-line observation:
nois coal which is high in volatile matter. articles or on social media. “So called waste material is in reality good
Further, being smoke inspector, the au- material in the wrong place.” That’s essen-
thor’s principal effort is naturally toward Legislating Safety tially the premise of using waste coal for
smoke prevention, rather than economy or In the early days of the industry, it was a fuel, an issue with both environmental
efficiency, which are more or less of sec- struggle to get codes and standards and pros and cons, as explained in this issue’s
ond consideration.” licensing requirements in place. It really “The Coal Refuse Dilemma: Burning Coal
But POWER clearly appreciated efforts was a Wild West of boiler operators, and for Environmental Benefits.” As that fea-
to reduce smoke pollution, and on Octo- just as in the Wild West, many died—as a ture and every other article in this issue
ber 6 advocated more adequately staffed result of boiler explosions and other cata- demonstrates, finding the sweet spot for
city “smoke inspection departments,” strophic malfunctions. When an editorial maximizing operational and economic ef-
concluding, “What is an appropriation of in Hotel World protested against “passing ficiency while operating cleanly and safely
two, or twenty thousand dollars to reduce laws for examining and licensing station- remains the goal of the best power plants
the cause of annual damage amounting to ary engineers to handle heating boilers,” today. We hope you will learn from the
millions in most large cities?” claiming that explosions were uncommon, new technologies and techniques offered
And in the September 8 issue the editor a POWER editorial countered with the fact in the following pages. ■
praises the Mellon Institute at the Univer- that there had been more than 500 such —Gail Reitenbach, PhD is POWER’s
sity of Pittsburgh for its bulletin “Some accidents in the previous year. editor.
POWER July 2016
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Rwanda’s Power the Netherlands Development Finance Co., extraction and power production. The gas
Production Triumph over a and the Belgian Investment Co. for Devel- extraction process, performed on a barge
“Killer Lake” oping Countries. In 2011, ContourGlobal anchored 13 kilometers (km) offshore in
Lake Kivu, the 1,040-square-mile “killer contracted Finnish energy technology firm Lake Kivu (Figure 1), brings gas-rich wa-
lake” that stretches over the border be- Wärtsilä to supply an engine-based plant ters from a depth of 300 meters (m) and
tween Rwanda and the Democratic Repub- with full engineering, procurement, and 35-bar pressure, reducing pressure to 2 bar
lic of Congo (DRC), has long been a source construction delivery. in a gas separator, where gas bubbles are
of trepidation. The plant, which has been operational extracted from the water. Raw gas is then
Because it sits between two volcanic since December 2015 but was inaugurated washed in four wash towers, ContourGlob-
regions in the western branch of the Great in May, relies on two processes: methane al explained.
Rift Valley, the deep, perpetually strati-
fied lake’s bottommost waters absorb
high concentrations of carbon dioxide 1. A killer lake reformed. Methane is drawn from Rwanda’s Lake Kivu at a depth of 300
meters by a special barge anchored 13 kilometers offshore. Courtesy: Werner Krug
(CO2) from magma-heated springs deep
underground, and microbes convert much
of the CO2 to methane. These dissolved
gases are held in solution by pressures
in the depths of the lake but can emerge
if zones of high concentration move to-
ward the surface, a process known as a
limnic eruption, or “overturn.” Because
the region is regularly subject to large-
magnitude seismic events and volcanic
discharges—and considering that meth-
ane has a high partial pressure—Lake
Kivu is known to experience violent over-
turns. Geologists believe they occur at
Lake Kivu about every 1,000 years—and
that the lake is ripe for another.
Limnic eruptions occurred at much
smaller Lakes Monoun and Nyos across the
continent in Cameroon in 1984 and 1986
respectively, killing more than 1,700 peo-
ple by asphyxiation. But an overturn at
Kivu could be catastrophic and endanger
millions of people living around its shores 2. Harnessing lake methane. Rwanda’s KivuWatt power plant runs on methane gas
on both sides of the border because it that is lifted from the depths of Lake Kivu, an “exploding lake.” The plant comprises three 20-cyl-
contains far more dissolved gases than inder 34SG gas-powered engines supplied by Wärtsilä. Courtesy: Werner Krug
those two lakes.
Rwanda’s government has for years
sought to extract the methane from Kivu’s
depths, both to mitigate the risk of such
a calamity and to generate power. Its ef-
forts first came to fruition in 2008, when
the country’s first methane-extracting and
power-producing plant, a 3-MW pilot proj-
ect, started operations.
Since then, the government has nego-
tiated several methane gas concessions.
Later in 2008, U.S.-based ContourGlobal,
a firm that owns about 4,000 MW of ca-
pacity in 20 countries, including in Africa,
entered into a partnership with the Rwan-
dan government to transform the menace
of the lake’s gas deposits into a 25-MW
power plant, dubbed KivuWatt. The proj-
ect subsequently garnered financial back-
ing from the African Development Bank,
the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund,
POWER July 2016
The clean gas is then transported to the that will involve two or three barges to fashion” while addressing critical energy
power plant (Figure 2) via pipeline, where generate an additional 75 MW. security issues and tackling carbon reduc-
three Wärtsilä 34SG engines use it as fuel. tion goals. The U.S. Department of Energy
According to Wärtsilä, the engines are op- TVA Submits Pioneering (DOE) is partially funding the TVA’s regula-
timized to run on Lake Kivu’s gases, which Application for SMR Early tory review process.
have a lower heating value than standard Site Permit The NRC has so far received seven appli-
natural gas. “This has helped to downsize The first-ever early site permit (ESP) ap- cations for ESPs—certification that a site
the size of the extracting barge and opti- plication for a small modular reactor (SMR) is suitable for construction of a nuclear
mize the costs of producing electricity,” it was submitted to the U.S. Nuclear Regula- plant—and all but Clinch River have been
said in a statement. tory Commission (NRC) this May, marking focused on full-size reactors. But most ap-
ContourGlobal noted that the design a resurgence for the fledgling nuclear en- plicants have chosen to defer their license
and technology is performing “even bet- ergy technology that has seen a number of applications, citing economic reasons. For
ter than expected,” and projects that the setbacks in recent years. the TVA, the value of an ESP application
gas extraction facility will support at least The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is to reduce licensing uncertainty when it
an additional 9 MW of power generation, submitted an ESP application for a poten- applies for a combined license by reach-
likely by the end of 2016. tial future SMR plant at its Clinch River ing early conclusions on siting and envi-
For Rwanda, the project is proving valu- site, 25 miles northwest of Knoxville in ronmental issues. However, it said, a final
able beyond its power production, under- eastern Tennessee. The pioneering move decision to proceed—still “several years
scoring its contribution to the region’s could result in an operating plant at the away”—will also hinge on economics.
socioeconomic development. Contour- site by 2026 if the TVA chooses to pursue The company has yet to choose an SMR
Global is working with the local popula- development, experts from the Nuclear En- technology. In 2011, the TVA joined forces
tion, training and developing local workers ergy Institute said. with Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) to design
to run KivuWatt and future installations. The federally owned corporation’s ex- and license its 180-MW mPower SMR, but
The project has also generally promoted ploration of SMR technology is part of that company slashed funding for the
peace with the DRC (the border area has efforts to diversify its fleet, moving it mPower program in April 2014, citing un-
suffered from intermittent conflict for de- toward low-carbon energy. The TVA also favorable market conditions. A number of
cades), which is also reportedly consider- said that the project’s main objective is other light-water SMR designs are under
ing a similar project, the government said. to demonstrate that SMRs can be used to development in the U.S., including those
Rwanda is now planning a second phase meet generation needs in an “incremental by BWX Technologies, Holtec, Westing-
|
THE BIG PICTURE: China’s Power Glut
Over the past decade, driven by a booming energy-intensive industry, China’s thermal power generation capacity has seen a
compound annual growth rate of about 11.1%. But now that the country is facing a more sluggish economy and power
demand has softened, and as it battles rampant air pollution and has accelerated renewable power capacity additions, it is
facing a massive coal power glut. (See also this month’s Commentary at the back of the issue.) The National Energy
Administration (NEA), the National Development and Reform Commission’s energy management arm, estimates nearly 300
GW of coal-fired capacity has been approved or is under construction around the country—but it has determined that no
more than 190 GW of new capacity will be needed before 2020. In April, the government took the drastic measure to halt
construction of coal-fired power plants in 13 provinces where capacity is in surplus and forced developers to stall construc-
tion of already approved plants in another 15 provinces. Sources: China National Bureau of Statistics, China Electricity
Council, NEA —Copy and artwork by Sonal Patel, a POWER associate editor or
4,329
hours
4,706 Change from

2012:
hours
5,012 Change from
–13%
hours
2012:
Change from –6%
4,982
2012:
+1%
64 A key indicator of China’s
GW surplus is its utilization
hours
rate. The hours that China’s
47 thermal plants operate
GW have fallen sharply in
37 926 recent years. Generally, the
industry regards more than
GW GW
52 868 New and

5,500 hours of thermal
plant operation as a signal
GW GW
existing
thermal: that it is facing a power
New and supply pinch, while less
existing 66%
826 thermal: of total
installed
than 4,500 hours indicates
a power surplus. In 2015,
762 GW 67%
of total
capacity
the utilization rate was
GW New and
existing
installed 4,329 hours—a new
New and capacity 69-year low.
thermal:
existing
thermal:
69%
of total
71% installed
of total capacity
installed
capacity
Estimated
new thermal
capacity*
Existing thermal Total installed
capacity capacity
333 385 445 517 Non-thermal
GW GW GW GW
capacity
2012 2013 2014 2015 *Figures are drawn from official published data. Totals year
to year may not be consistent with data from previous
1,147 1,247 1,360 1,507 years, most likely to due to rounding and retirements of
older generation.
GW GW GW GW
POWER July 2016
begin commercial operations in the fall
3. New design. Oregon-based NuScale 4. On the nuclear horizon. An artist’s
Power is preparing to submit a design certifi- rendering of a future CAP1400 nuclear reactor
(Figure 5). According to its developers,
cation application for its 50-MW small modular facility. Courtesy: SNPTC the plant will use forest residues and
reactor (SMR) to the Nuclear Regulatory Com- wood waste—sawdust, bark, and logging
mission this fall. The SMR developer is the residues from local and regional sources
only one to have an active customer deploy- around the Baltic Sea—as well as recov-
ment project: The first NuScale facility is due ered heat from data centers to produce
to be completed in 2024 in Idaho for UAMPS, district heat for nearly 200,000 house-
a municipal utility. In March, the company— holds. The plant is also designed for fuel
whose primary investor is Fluor Corp.—un- flexibility to allow it to use new fuels from
veiled a modified AREVA HTP-2 fuel design for
the developing bioenergy market, Fortum
the SMR, dubbed “NuFuel HTP2.” This image
shows a full-scale mockup of the upper part of
China’s CAP1400 Clears said. Daily consumption of wood chips will
a NuScale SMR. Courtesy: NuScale Power IAEA Safety Assessment be about 12,000 m3.
China’s CAP1400—a reactor design based Building the plant in the middle of Stock-
on Westinghouse’s AP1000 pressurized holm—a city with a population of about
water reactor—has successfully passed 1.4 million people—involved multiple
the International Atomic Energy Agency’s challenges, including working with limited
(IAEA’s) Generic Reactor Safety Review. space and requiring closed-fuel systems to
The milestone is significant for China, avoid dust emissions and noise. The plant
which plans to deploy the advanced reac- uses an old rock cavern—previously used
tor design in large numbers (Figure 4) as for oil storage—that was converted into
well as export the technology. a massive underground wood chip storage
The IAEA’s review assesses the safety facility. It is able to store about 60,000 m3,
cases of new reactor designs that are not or five days of fuel demand.
yet in the licensing stage against appli- While the Värtan site has full access
cable IAEA safety standards. to road, rail, and sea transportation, the
According to China’s State Nuclear Pow- current fuel procurement plan is based on
er Technology Corp. (SNPTC), the 1,500- getting 40% by rail from Nordic biomass
MWe (gross) reactor has a design life of suppliers and another 60% by ship from
60 years and a design annual availability the Baltic Sea region and Russia. “The aim
of more than 93%. Refueling would be is to ensure the security of supply and ac-
needed every 18 months, and it has pas- cess to a wide geographic biomass market
sive safety features, including a passive over time,” Fortum explained.
core cooling system, a passive contain- To ensure adequate supply by sea, the
ment cooling system, and a passive main company built a new 200-m pier in the
control room habitability system. As de- harbor area to accommodate two vessels
signed, the company envisions construc- up to Panamax size. On average, the plant
tion would span about 56 months, though requires three to four shipments per week
it is working to trim that to 48 months. to meet its fuel demand, as well as five
SNPTC says China has spent about $2 trainloads per week, each with a capac-
house, and NuScale Power, whose design billion on research and development of ity of about 4,600 m3. All fuel is unloaded
and licensing is also backed by $217 mil- the reactor. Among its major developers and processed indoors within a closed
lion in DOE match funding over five years were Westinghouse, which provided de- system before delivery to the power plant.
(Figure 3). sign consultation; Lockheed Martin, which All logistics are coordinated in-house to
Ultimately, the technology decision participated in the protection and safety control supply risks.
will be heavily influenced by the SMR de- monitoring system development; Ohio The company’s decision to use biomass
sign’s attractiveness as it relates to safety, State University, which helped with test was complicated by an emerging debate
cost, and operability, TVA Senior Manager verification; and KSB and Curtiss-Wright’s in the European Union (EU) about how
for SMRs Dan Stout said. “Other consid- Electro-Mechanical Division, which partic- sustainable the fuel source is. Fortum
erations include the developer’s financial ipated in the development of the reactor noted in an April 2016 energy review that
strength, capabilities and commitments coolant pump. biomass is now the most common form of
that influence the attractiveness of the renewable energy in the EU, and it is the
business case.” Depending on technology One of the World’s Biggest only source that can replace every type of
selection, the total electrical output of Biomass-Fired CHP Plants fossil fuel in all energy markets—heating,
the site will be a maximum of 800 MW, Is Inaugurated cooling, electricity, and transport—but
he added. “The application establishes a Fortum Värme, a company jointly owned concerns are growing about competition
plant parameter envelope that includes all by Finnish energy firm Fortum and the city for resources and security of supply.
four domestic light-water small modular of Stockholm on May 9 inaugurated a new In the EU, while sustainability and
reactor designs. This envelope could sup- biomass-fired combined heat and power traceability concerns are primarily related
port multiple reactors from each of the (CHP) plant on the shores of Värtan, a to biomass imports from other continents,
SMR vendors, up to four mPower reactors, strait in Sweden’s capital city. the 27-member bloc has yet to issue a uni-
four Holtec reactors, 12 NuScale reactors, The Värtan CHP8 (130 MWe, 280 MWth), form sustainability policy on all bioenergy
or three Westinghouse reactors,” he said. which began construction in 2013, will (current EU sustainability criteria only ap-
POWER July 2016
The EU’s policy, which is currently under
5. A biomass CHP giant. Finnish energy firm Fortum and the city of Stockholm have
inaugurated a new biomass-fired combined heat and power (CHP) plant near Värtan, a strait in
public consultation, should apply to the
Sweden’s capital city. Värtan CHP8 is one of the largest of its type in the world. Courtesy: Fortum origin of all bioenergy regardless of end
use, be legally binding, and be applicable
to plants exceeding 20 MWth. Ultimately,
it should enable increased use of biomass
while minimizing administrative burdens
or related costs. “The new criteria should
not decrease the competitiveness of bio-
mass: in many cases, biomass competes
with fossil fuels, which generally have no
requirements to demonstrate sustainabil-
ity,” it said.
—Sonal Patel, associate editor
Employing Fuel Cells for

Carbon Capture
Fuel cells are a rapidly expanding option
for distributed generation, with fuel cell–
based power plants now being deployed
in capacities into tens of megawatts (see
“59-MW Fuel Cell Park Opening Heralds
Robust Global Technology Future” in the
ply to biofuels and bioliquids, not solids), and transparency of the biomass markets, May 2014 issue). But as the technology
and that has hindered investments in bio- increase the use of sustainable biomass in improves and costs begin to scale, oppor-
mass. “Harmonised sustainability criteria energy production, and promote the tran- tunities for other applications are being
for all bioenergy would increase the pre- sition from fossil fuels to renewable and explored.
dictability and stability of the operating carbon-neutral biomass fuels,” the Fortum One such application may even go be-
environment, ensure proper functioning review added. yond power generation. Danbury, Conn.–
|
they respond to different compositions of
6. Game changer? Fuel cells powered by natural gas could potentially function as carbon
capture technology by using power plant flue gas instead of ambient air. Courtesy: FuelCell
flue gas. Assuming success, the second
Energy phase will move to a small-scale pilot proj-
ect for additional testing, then integration
into a larger-scale pilot facility.
—Thomas W. Overton, JD, associate
editor
POWER Digest
Fuel Loading Begins at Kudankulam 2.
Nuclear Power Corp. of India (NPCIL)
began loading the first of 163 fuel assem-
blies into the core of the second VVER-
1000 reactor of the Kudankulam nuclear
power plant in Tamil Nadu, India, on May
11. The 1,000-MW unit will begin gener-
ating power pending approval from the
Atomic Energy Regulatory Board. The
unit is the second supplied by Rosatom
subsidiary Atomstroyexport. The first
Russian-built reactor at the plant, Ku-
dankulam 1, started commercial operation
in December 2014, and state-owned firm
NPCIL is readying to build Units 3 and 4
at the site after delays concerning India’s
nuclear damage liability law. India is also
in discussions with Russia on costs to
build Units 5 and 6, Indian news media
reported in May.
based FuelCell Energy (FCE), one of the typical 500-MW combined cycle plant Saudi Arabia Starts Up $3B Oil-Fired
largest suppliers of fuel cells worldwide, would need around 120 MW of fuel cells Power Plant. State-controlled Saudi Elec-
and ExxonMobil in May announced a part- to achieve 90% capture, Goddard said, tricity Co. (SEC) in mid-May grid con-
nership to explore the possibilities for us- while an equivalent coal plant might need nected and started commercial operations
ing fuel cells for carbon capture. around 400 MW of fuel cells because of its at the first 660-MW unit of its 2,640-MW
According to Kurt Goddard, FCE’s vice lower efficiency and higher CO2 emissions. Jeddah South Thermal Power Plant. The
president of investor relations, the ap- Commercial deployment is still years away, $3.12 billion oil-fired project that was
plication will depart from the traditional but representatives from both companies announced in 2012 makes history in the
method of powering the fuel cells with are optimistic about the potential. kingdom for its use of highly efficient su-
ambient air and methane. Instead of air, The possibilities of employing fuel cells percritical boilers. South Korea’s Hyundai
it uses coal- or gas-plant flue gas. to reduce power plant emissions for both Heavy Industries built the plant while Ja-
Normally in FCE’s carbonate fuel cells, coal plants and natural gas combined pan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries sup-
methane is reformed in the cell anode to cycle plants, and potentially capture CO2, plied the equipment. SEC hasn’t confirmed
create CO2 and H2, which is then used to have drawn research attention in recent when it anticipates all units to be com-
generate electricity by combining with ox- years, though applications have typically pleted, though it said that the project will
ygen from ambient air to create an electric involved placing the fuel cells in front of help meet power demand from the west-
current and exhaust streams of water va- the turbines or replacing typical combus- ern region, particularly during the fasting
por and CO2 (Figure 6). The carbon-capture tion processes altogether. The FCE-Exxon- month of Ramadan (which starts in June)
fuel cell will still be powered by methane, Mobil initiative is among the first to look in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
but by using flue gas instead of ambient at placing the fuel cells after combustion. NuGen Delays UK Nuclear Plant Start-
air, the chemical reactions in the cell can ExxonMobil began working with FCE on up by a Year. UK nuclear company NuGen-
concentrate up to 90% of the incoming this project several years ago, Goddard eration (NuGen), a joint venture between
CO2, which flows with the CO2 generated said, beginning with informal discussions Toshiba’s Westinghouse (60%) and EN-
in the reforming process into the normal that led to more formal testing. With the GIE (40%), has delayed first power from a
exhaust stream, where it can easily be potential now clear, the two companies proposed nuclear plant in Cumbria to the
separated from the water vapor. have gone public with the initiative. The end of 2025, a year later than planned.
A critical difference—and bonus—in partnership will focus initially on how to The company plans to build three AP1000
this process is that rather than being a further increase efficiency in separation reactors with a combined capacity of up
parasitic drain on the plant, it actually and concentration of the CO2 from gas tur- to 3.8 GW at the site near Sellafield in
generates additional power. In addition, bine exhaust. That is expected to take one west Cumbria but has yet to make a fi-
the process destroys roughly two-thirds of to two years. nal investment decision, likely to come in
the NOx in the flue gas. FCE and ExxonMobil scientists will be 2018. However, if the plant comes online
How much CO2 can be captured depends working to better understand the chemical in 2025, it could overtake EDF’s Hinkley
on how many fuel cells are employed. A processes that are taking place and how Point C project, which has been billed as
POWER July 2016
the first new nuclear plant to begin opera- class waste disposal facility, and to do so carry out the replacement. The utility will
tions in the UK in a generation. safely,” the commission said, noting that begin carrying out 18-month-long pre-fea-
The UK needs the new plants to help re- such a facility could generate more than sibility studies to assess renewal options
place its coal plants and its aging nuclear A$100 billion in income over its 120-year for four of its oldest power stations: Koma-
fleet, which will be shuttered by 2025. lifetime. ti, Camden, Hendrina, and Arnot.
As experts point out, NuGen still needs Royal Commissioner Kevin Scarce told Marubeni Signs Deals to Boost Power
to secure approval for its AP1000 reactor reporters in May, after the final report’s Capacity in Southeast Asia. Marubeni
under the country’s Generic Design Assess- release, that the state has a number of Corp. on May 16 agreed with South Ko-
ment approval process. EDF, meanwhile, in competitive advantages such as stable rean firms Korea Midland Power Co. and
May announced that the Hinkley Point C geology, a strong international reputation Samtan Co., and Indonesian coal miner
project could take nearly 10 years to build for a good regulatory environment, and a PT Indika Energi Internasional to joint-
once a decision has been made, also likely vast amount of land. Before a final deci- ly develop the 1-GW ultrasupercritical
in 2018. The UK expects a third nuclear sion can be made, however, the state will Cirebon 3 coal plant adjacent to the 660-
plant, Hitachi’s Horizon, to come online need extensive community consultation, MW Cirebon Steam Power Plant, which
over the next decade. he said. A referendum or election wasn’t began operations in 2012, and the 1-GW
CB&I Bows Out of Agreement to Build the best way to gain consent because the Cirebon 2 plant, which is under construc-
South Texas Project Nuclear Units. planning period for the proposed state tion in the district of Cirebon, West Java
Toshiba Corp. and CB&I on May 11 agreed government–owned facility would take province, Indonesia. Indonesia’s govern-
to terminate a series of agreements re- more than a decade. “There isn’t one sil- ment wants to boost its power capacity
lated to the development and execution ver bullet solution to this,” he was widely 35 GW by 2019 to meet increasing de-
of an engineering, procurement, and con- quoted as saying. mand, which has prompted a flurry of
struction (EPC) contract for South Texas Eskom Looks to Extend Coal Plant bids from foreign independent power pro-
Project (STP) Units 3 & 4, and on a global Lifetimes. Power-strapped South Africa’s ducers. Marubeni on May 24 also signed
strategic partnership to promote Toshiba’s state-owned utility Eskom has decided to a memorandum of understanding with
Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR). renew, rather than decommission, its ag- Italy’s Enel to cooperate in evaluating
Toshiba America Nuclear Energy (TANE), ing coal fleet. Eskom’s board in late April power generation project opportunities
CB&I, and Nuclear Innovation North approved a fleet renewal strategy that will in Southeast Asia, especially in Indone-
America (NINA), the entity that owns the extend the life of a station by replacing sia, Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar, Viet-
STP nuclear units, agreed that CB&I will components when they reach the end of nam, and Malaysia. ■
be relieved from any further obligations their lives, as long as it is economical to —Sonal Patel, associate editor
related to the units. The agreement termi-
nation means that TANE now becomes the
sole EPC contractor for the proposed units,
though Toshiba noted NINA may not plan
to immediately start construction owing
to “current economic drivers in Texas and
other related issues.” The project received
a combined construction and operating li-
cense in February 2016.
Shaw Group, which became a CB&I
subsidiary after its acquisition in 2013,
entered into the alliance with Toshiba
in 2010 to promote the Japanese com-
pany’s ABWR design in markets world-
wide. In December 2015, Westinghouse
Electric Co. agreed to acquire CB&I’s
Stone & Webster unit, recognizing that
“CB&I’s business strategy is now focused
on sectors other than nuclear new build
projects.”
South Australian Royal Commission
Backs International Nuclear Waste Stor-
age Facility. As suggested in tentative
findings issued this February, South Austra-
lia’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission in
May recommended that the state establish
a facility that would be used for the interim
storage and disposal of used nuclear fuel
from all over the world (see “Commission
Backs Plan to Store World’s Nuclear Waste
in Australian Outback” in the April 2016
issue). The state “has the necessary attri-
butes and capabilities to develop a world-
|
Boiler Tube Failure
Thermohydraulic Analysis causing cyclic fatigue in the tube mate- ment and validated against experimental
rial. Because the plant was designed for data. The 1-D flow solver was a thermo-
Eskom operates 23 power stations in South consistent operation at full load, the fluid simulations software package used
Africa with a total capacity of more than cyclic fatigue was leading to compo- to predict, design, and optimize flow
42 GW. It supplies about 95% of all the nent damage and reliability problems. rates, temperatures, and heat transfer in
electricity used in the country. One of its The failures resulted in unscheduled fluid systems. The one-way FSI model-
coal-fired power stations was experiencing shutdowns, emergency repairs, and un- ing approach allowed a transient ther-
frequent boiler tube fatigue failures in the expected costs. mal load, or any user-selected transient
hopper section—the bottom part of the It was also believed that the delayed step, to be coupled with a 3-D finite
boiler—of all six units. effect of cooling water being supplied element analysis (FEA) software sup-
The boilers were designed with a com- between two adjacent boiler tubes of plied by ANSYS to evaluate the thermal-
plex support beam structure that cradles different tube banks could be a con- induced stress.
and surrounds the boiler. Pivoting attach- tributing factor to thermal fatigue fail-
ment mechanisms exist between the sup- ure. The argument presumed that a Validation Offers Assurance
port beam structure, or buckstays, and the column of water from the economizer Half of the four boiler hopper walls were
tube wall to allow for thermal expansion outlet would reach the closest tube modeled to obtain a representative sam-
while still providing adequate support on bank first, the second bank next, and ple of the complete hopper section. In-
all four sides. so forth. It was alleged that this would strumentation, including thermocouples
The boiler can expand up to a meter cause a significant fluid temperature and strain gauges, was also installed in
downwards during a startup sequence. differential between the first bank’s the modeled area of the hopper section to
Buckstays join at corner junction locations outermost tube and the adjacent tube obtain measured plant data. The Flownex
of the hopper where the slope walls and of the second bank. model consisted of 1,219 tubes and 1,858
front/rear walls join. They are connected To test the hypotheses, a unique one- vertices/nodes.
to each other using hinged members re- way fluid structure interaction (FSI) Flownex’s capability to fundamen-
ferred to as buckstay connection links. methodology was developed to model tally calculate flow and heat transfer
These junctions necessitate the rerout- and predict the induced fatigue loading behavior of both fluid and tube wall
ing of the surrounding front/rear wall during a boiler startup cycle. Fluid flow material during steady state and dy-
tubes, leading to discontinuities in tube and heat transfer was transiently mod- namic conditions was considered an
layout. High tube failure rates were iden- eled using a 1-D pipe flow modeling tool ideal fit for the testing. Using the same
tified at these tube manipulations and the supplied by Flownex Simulation Environ- economizer outlet temperature profile
areas were considered to be possible high-
stress locations.
2. Flownex model validation. The 1-D solver results (denoted as FNX Tc13 through
Modeling Boiler Stress FNX Tc16) correlated very closely with the data from installed thermocouples (denoted as Tc13
A suspected cause of the repeated tube through Tc16). Courtesy: Flownex SE
failures (Figure 1) was that cyclic op- ■ Tc13 ■ Tc14 ■ Tc15 ■ Tc16 ■ FNX Tc13 ■ FNX Tc14 ■ FNX Tc15 ■ FNX Tc16
eration of the plant to accommodate 300
increased intermittent renewable en-
ergy resources and reduced electric-
ity demand during off-peak hours was 250
1. Fatigue failure. This image shows a

typical boiler tube failure location at the Es- 200
kom-owned plant. Courtesy: Flownex SE
Temperature (C)
150
100
50
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Time (hr)
POWER July 2016
Having ruled extreme temperature
3. Mapping procedure. A 1-D line geometry created in a computer-aided drafting pack- differentials out, the effects of struc-
age was imported into Flownex simulation software to obtain thermal results, which were tural support members in the form of
exported to ANSYS software for stress analysis. Courtesy: Flownex SE welded support plates at the buckstay
Plant drawings Digitize to computer-aided Finite element analysis computer-aided junction locations were evaluated. The
drafting format drafting geometry pre-processor developed methodology facilitated
comparisons between two cases consid-
ered: first, where the buckstay sliding
joint plates were present, and second,
*.pcf file export a case where these plates were removed
(Figure 4). In evaluating these sce-
narios, the model clearly showed that
stress worsened in the presence of the
Finite element analysis simulation plates.
With this new knowledge, Eskom was
1D transient pipe able to make modifications to the boil-
solver
er structure to reduce induced stress.
Plates were removed, which greatly re-
duced tube wall stress without compro-
mising the integrity of the surrounding
Temperature field
structure.
Initial data taken following the modi-
fication indicated that strain at the lo-
cations previously susceptible to damage
4. Stressed out. Contour plots colored by maximum principal stress at the buckstay junc-
tion location are shown here for both cases where the sliding joint plate is present (left) and
had been reduced. Strain data collected
removed (right). Courtesy: Flownex SE over a two-year period prior to solution
implementation was compared to data
collected after the changes. From the
time-averaged data, it was shown that
average strain and subsequent stress-
induced fatigue loads have been reduced
by approximately 50%.
A Valuable Tool
The ability to eliminate, through simula-
tion, non-contributors to failure and iden-
tify potential new failure mechanisms has
proven to be a powerful engineering tool.
The developed one-way FSI methodology
has been demonstrated to be effective
in solving problems of thermal-induced
stress fatigue loading as a result of fluid-
coupled thermal flow. Obtaining a thermal
as obtained during the plant measure- causes of failures without affecting plant field from 3-D computational fluid dynam-
ment sequence, together with adjusted operations. It also facilitated the model- ics, as used for structural FEA boundary
gas-side heat transfer properties, a ing of the massive boiler structure, which conditions, is not practical due to the size
dynamic startup scenario was modeled could not have been done economically of the problems considered. 1-D to 3-D
to validate the results from the mod- using 3-D computational fluid dynamics one-way FSI coupling is not only a fea-
el against that of the measured plant simulations. sible alternative, but it also is an effective
data. A number of other scenarios were and efficient solution.
also successfully modeled. Simulation Leads to Answers Similar problems have been reported
The results obtained from the model The results from the developed model at various other Eskom power stations.
corresponded very well with the mea- indicated that the delay in water supply Identifying the main contributing fac-
sured plant data (Figure 2). The strong between the first tube bank’s outermost tor to these stresses may lead to the
correlation enabled the model to be used tube and the adjacent tube of the second mitigation of numerous outages due to
for various postulated plant conditions bank did not induce perturbing stresses tube failure repairs, which in turn will
and operating sequences. The tempera- as postulated. The maximum temperature result in a significant financial benefit
ture distribution results from Flownex differential was calculated to be only to Eskom and improved reliability for
were then imported into ANSYS, where 2.2C. This proved to be due to the con- customers. ■
the structural stress analysis was per- duction and thermal inertia of the tube —Marius Botha and Michael P. Hindley
formed (Figure 3). walls and webbing, which resulted in a were members of Eskom’s Research Test-
The methodology allowed the exami- smooth transition in adjacent tube wall ing and Development team tasked with
nation of various scenarios to evaluate temperatures. solving the plant’s tube failure problem.
|
Securing Pipeline
Infrastructure for Gas-
Glenn S. Benson Walker Stanovsky
Fired Generation in
New England
ncreased reliance on natural gas as a fuel for electric genera- measures, arguing, among other things, that:
I tion has prompted regulatory reforms by the Federal Energy

Regulatory Commission (FERC) to improve coordination be-
tween the two industries. Many in the power industry believe
■ Preferential releases would be unduly discriminatory and would
harm competitive markets
critical constraints in gas pipeline infrastructure serving New ■ Access Northeast would get built regardless
England pose a significant threat to electric reliability and prices ■ New England generators do not want special treatment and can
during periods of peak load in this area. To address this perceived secure reliable fuel supplies without it
threat, electric distribution companies (EDCs) in the region have ■ The EDC contracts are legally infirm under state law
teamed up with Algonquin Gas Transmission on its Access North- ■ There is more than adequate gas delivery infrastructure in the
east pipeline project, which would carry up to 1 billion cubic region
feet (Bcf) per day of Marcellus gas to the Northeast. The project ■ There is a conflict of interest because Eversource and National
depends on an innovative but highly controversial effort to se- Grid propose to own 60% of Access Northeast
cure regulatory approvals and financing by relying on the EDCs’ ■ The FERC petition is premature because the states have not yet
balance sheets and subsidization by electric ratepayers. acted
Approximately 16,000 MW of gas-fired generation are currently
connected to the New England market. Yet few generators have Assuming the EDC contracts and electric reliability programs
entered into long-term firm pipeline transportation contracts to are approved by at least some of the New England states, the
ensure reliable supplies of gas. This means many of them may Algonquin petition would appear to present FERC with a choice
be unable to obtain needed gas supplies on peak days or may between two of its highest priorities: ensuring electric reliabil-
have to pay an exorbitant premium to get it, threatening electric ity and adequate pipeline infrastructure on the one hand, and
reliability in the region and stable prices for ratepayers due to safeguarding competitive markets, policing undue discrimina-
limited electric transmission import capability. tion, and promoting transparency on the other. Faced with this
Regional grid operator ISO New England has sought to ensure conundrum, FERC will likely chart a middle course.
the reliability of its electric capacity resources on peak days by
adopting strict capacity performance requirements and penalties Splitting the Difference?
for non-performance. This has spurred increased dual-fuel capa- One such path forward would be to grant Algonquin’s petition
bility by new generators but not long-term firm pipeline trans- subject to conditions. FERC might require that Algonquin revise
portation agreements. Without such contracts, pipeline projects its proposal, narrowly tailoring it to do no more than necessary to
cannot be financed and built. promote electric reliability and ensuring that all of the terms un-
der which preferential releases to generators would be conducted
Stepping Up to the Plate are fully fleshed out in the pipeline’s tariff. FERC also might re-
Into this void have stepped Algonquin and EDCs owned by Na- quire that before any EDC releases its capacity to a generator for
tional Grid and Eversource Energy. Despite being pure electric longer than 31 days, the EDC post the capacity on Algonquin’s
distribution companies, these EDCs have taken the novel step of electronic bulletin board for bidding by other generators.
signing long-term pipeline precedent agreements for capacity on This would preserve transparency and at least some measure
Access Northeast and requesting that their state regulators ap- of competition in the capacity release market, while allowing the
prove those contracts as benefitting the EDCs’ ratepayers. Algon- EDC-supported capacity to be re-sold first to generators, as it is
quin, in turn, has petitioned FERC to allow EDCs who subscribe on behalf of them that the EDCs are contracting. While such a
for pipeline capacity on its system to resell that capacity, on a result may seem a fair compromise to some, a solution that satis-
preferential basis, to electric generators through state-regulated fies all will almost certainly prove elusive. FERC held a technical
electric reliability programs—assuming states ultimately adopt conference in early May on Algonquin’s petition and may take
these programs. Any contract costs not recovered through such its time reaching a decision in light of these issues, the pend-
resales would be passed through to the EDC’s electric ratepayers. ing state proceedings, and the fact that Algonquin is targeting
Not surprisingly, these regulatory efforts face broad opposition fourth quarter 2018 for service commencement. ■
on a variety of grounds at both FERC and the state level. The —Glenn S. Benson ([email protected]) is a partner in Davis
Electric Power Supply Association, New England Power Generators Wright Tremaine LLP’s Energy Practice in the firm’s Washington,
Association, Natural Gas Supply Association, the Massachusetts D.C. office. Walker Stanovsky ([email protected]) is an
Attorney General, and a number of large electric utilities, gen- associate in the firm’s Energy Practice, working out of the firm’s
erators, gas marketers, and gas producers oppose the proposed Seattle office.
POWER July 2016
Rugged communications
G42223/H892/R:42/X4/9822
for the electric power grid

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ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Generators Grapple with ELG
Implementation
Courtesy: RoyalBroil/Wikipedia/Creative Commons 4.0
Plant wastewater treatment is not what it once was, and changes in the Environ-
mental Protection Agency’s effluent limitations guidelines (ELG) have added a host
of new wrinkles. A panel of power plant experts discussed what plant managers are
planning and doing to keep things running smoothly within the new rules.
Thomas W. Overton
1. A time for change. Westar Energy is
F
or more than three decades, the Envi- both generators and consulting firms con-
ronmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) vened at the Energy, Utility, and Environ- transitioning its coal fleet, including the 2,155-
Steam Electric Power Generating Efflu- ment Conference in San Diego to offer MW Jeffery Energy Center in St. Marys, Kan.
ent Guidelines (or effluent limitation guide- their early thoughts on compliance with the (which was POWER’s 2014 Water Award win-
ner) toward compliance with new rules for
lines, ELGs), which govern wastewater dis- updated rule.
disposal of wastewater and coal combustion
charges from electric power plants, were a residuals. Courtesy: Westar Energy
fixed, known quantity. The last update was in Where to Start?
1982. But in the 2000s, the EPA began look- Not surprisingly, most generators have al-
ing at an update, a process that took more ready begun compliance efforts, work that
than 10 years of study and comment. The began even before the rule was final. Fur-
final rule, finalized in September 2015, is ther, it’s well understood that ELG compli-
long and complex, setting the stage for a lot ance will be intimately related to compliance
of confusion and uncertainty. (For more on with the new Coal Combustion Residuals
the specifics of ELG compliance, see “Take (CCR) rule (see “Coal Combustion Residu-
These Five Steps Now to Ensure ELG Com- als Rule Compliance Strategies” in the June
pliance at Your Power Plant” in the Decem- 2016 issue or at powermag.com. Bill Ska-
ber 2015 issue.) litzky, manager of generation compliance
What does this mean for generators? for Alliant Energy, noted that his company
The answer will no doubt evolve over time, has already gone ahead and dredged out an
but the new rule has a lot of people con- ash pond at a plant that had been converted
cerned. In February 2016, a group of power to natural gas. “So we already have one of
sector environmental experts representing our ponds secured and closed. We’re look-
POWER July 2016
ing at a lot of different methods,” ranging
2. A big zero. The zero-liquid-discharge system supplied by Aquatech for Southern Co.’s
from excavating to enclosure; “we’ve been
Kemper County Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle Plant in Mississippi uses a combina-
planning for a few years now.” tion of ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis, conventional demineralization, and thermal evaporation.
Jared Morrison, manager, water & waste- Courtesy: Aquatech
water programs for Westar Energy, also
said, “We’ve been planning for that for quite
some time.” But he noted that first steps
varied across different plants (Figure 1). “I
think the first activity was trying to under-
stand how we can close surface impound-
ments and how we can clean them. That
was the biggest issue at those sites. At other
sites, the first activity was understanding the
water balances.”
Compliance with the ELGs will require
some substantial lead times for both equip-
ment and the time needed to install it, the
speakers noted—in the range of 12 to 18
months.
“There are some risks associated with
that,” Morrison said, “and we are seeing
those lead times get longer and longer.”
Though there is a natural impulse to
want to delay capital expenditures, doing
so is risky. Where it is necessary, Block
Andrews, director of strategic environ-
mental solutions for Burns & McDonnell, 3. Just the beginning. Though typical flue gas desulfurization (FGD) wastewater treat-
recommended working closely with regu- ment systems produce a certain amount of effluent, as shown here, changes in the Effluent
lators, “so they understand your side of Limitations Guidelines are creating pressure on generators to move to full zero-liquid-discharge
the story.” systems. Source: Siemens
Groundwater Monitoring Organo- Ferric

The groundwater monitoring required by the Alkali sulfide Hydrochloric
chloride
CCR rule can help with ELG compliance, Polymer acid
several noted. Skalitzky said Alliant is in- FGD purge from
stalling monitoring equipment at several of hydroclones Treated
its sites in Wisconsin. “We already have some wastewater
Clarification (to discharge and
groundwater monitoring data for constituents also used for
of concern.” Equalization RX1 RX2 backwash)
Gravity
Morrison said Westar has been aggres- Recycle sludge filtration
sive in assessing its surface impoundments Sludge
and installing monitoring equipment.
“Those areas where we felt we were at a Dewatering
pretty high risk of having some sort of hit
that would trigger closure, we went ahead
and closed those prior to the deadline.” Sludge
Only the impoundments that were viewed tank Cake
Filtrate
as low risk remained open. “We felt that if
Filtrate Backwash reject
they did have an issue, we could respond
sump
quickly to cease using those within six
months.” Those impoundments, he said,
were mainly bottom ash. completely dry or that use mechanical de- Andrews noted a trend toward zero-liquid
With respect to groundwater monitor- watering. But there is concern about the in- discharge (ZLD, Figure 2) was on the way,
ing, Morrison said they have a lot of par- dustry’s ability to produce and deploy such but not many people have gone that direc-
tial historical data that may or may not systems in time. tion yet.
be current because of past monitoring for “Honestly, this is a concern,” Andrews said. “That would probably not be something
various reasons. “We’re installing wells “I don’t know how many utilities are going to you would be looking at if you’ve got a pretty
today so that we can start our background be approaching these projects, but there is a large body of water to deal with. It’s going to
samples” this year, he said. limited capacity to address them, maybe 10 or be the people on the smaller side.”
15 spots in a year, maybe 20, but the suppliers Skalitsky noted that maintenance of
Equipment Challenges will need to ramp up to do that. We’ll see them submerged drag chain systems was a ma-
Both rules provide pressure to move to bot- step up to the plate, but I would certainly state jor challenge. “We’re definitely looking
tom ash handling systems that are either that we will see some delays.” toward a dry system,” he said, mentioning
|
wear and tear on the drag chains and the require a lot of outage time where it’s possi- water takes time and effort, and getting to
availability of replacement parts. “We’ve ble to prefabricate many of the components. smooth operations is a lengthy, ongoing pro-
looked at a number of things, and in most On one unit, Edgewater Generating Station cess, Morrison said. “It takes time to train
cases we’re going to try to move toward a (shown in the header photo), he said, “We people, it takes time to get them up to speed.
totally dry system.” anticipate it’s going to take about three days All of these are significant issues.”
Morrison agreed. “The ash transport systems of changing out some pumps to convert to a Skalitsky said most of Alliant’s plants
require a lot of maintenance. It’s not something dry system.” have wastewater operators in place, but ad-
you enjoy dealing with,” he said. “We will eval- Different planning is needed to get various ditional hiring is likely to be necessary. Be-
uate the dry system, and if it’s feasible economi- wastewater streams (for example, from the cause Wisconsin requires these staff to be
cally, we will move forward on it.” flue gas desulfurizer, FGD, Figure 3) segre- certified for managing wastewater, that cre-
gated so they can be managed under both sets ates an additional step for new staff that may
Labor and Outage Impacts of rules. be needed for the new systems. “We’re going
Another concern was the added training that “We’re looking at putting in some kind to have to have those operators certified for
will be necessary for operators of new ash- of tank system where we can collect all this those type of operations.”
handling and biological treatment systems. water from the FGDs and utilizing that wa- Morrison said Westar has had to reach
The limited number of existing systems ter back into the scrubber,” Skalitsky said. out beyond its existing staff to manage these
means a limited talent pool to draw on, and “We’re trying to get down, as best we can, to new challenges. While they have chemists
biological treatment requires a skill set not all a zero-liquid discharge, especially on some on staff, they did not have the specific ex-
plant operators will possess. of the plants where we have restrictive water pertise necessary to manage wastewater
“There are just not a lot of biological quality systems.” chemistry and had to bring in an outside
treatment systems out there,” Morrison said. Morrison noted that managing and moni- expert. “We were missing that knowledge
“Keeping the bugs happy, it is going to take toring these systems requires a lot more at- in the company, so we had to go and find
someone with some knowledge of chemis- tention to minutiae like water flow rates in that expertise. That has been a challenge. It
try. It works, but you have to have someone the ash-handling system. “That’s not histori- is hard to rely on an external company to do
who is well trained and really watching the cally something that was built in as a concern that for you. We need the same consistent
systems to make sure it’s operating. It’s just at our facilities.” presence on a day-to-day basis. It’s not re-
additional operators with experience on those ally the best situation.” ■
systems.” Operational Impacts —Thomas W. Overton, JD is a POWER
Skalitzky noted that conversion need not Adapting to new methods of handling waste- associate editor.
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28228
Evaluating the Use of CEMS for
Accurate Heat Rate Monitoring
and Reporting
Courtesy: Gail Reitenbach
Power plants are familiar with using continuous emissions monitoring systems
(CEMS) to monitor pollutants, but these devices also may be able to measure
heat rate—which could be handy for future compliance with the Clean Power
Plan.
Sam Korellis and Chuck Dene
C
ontinuous emissions monitoring sys- conduct an annual relative accuracy test audit The ability to accurately measure the two
tems (CEMS) are used to monitor (RATA) to determine the status and ability of key parameters to the heat rate equation—
power plant flue gas emissions as a the CEMS to comply with EPA requirements. the flue gas CO2 concentration and the stack
means to comply with federal and state air volumetric flow rate—will thus be of key
emission standards. Through various meth- More Than Emissions importance.
ods, they determine the concentration and In addition to emissions, CEMS also provide a However, determination of heat input for
amount of key emissions, including nitrogen value for boiler heat input—and, therefore, very solid fuel power plants is difficult to measure
oxides, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, car- easily permit the determination of heat rate. directly with sufficient accuracy because coal
bon dioxide (CO2), hydrogen chloride, par- Heat rate is a key measure of power plant flow is difficult to measure. That coal flow
ticulate matter, mercury, and volatile organic efficiency. It is the ratio of heat input and rate is the key parameter in the determination
compounds (Figure 1). power output. The lower the heat rate, the of the heat portion of heat rate. Coal constitu-
CEMS are required in all U.S. fossil-fired better the efficiency. ents do not remain constant over time, espe-
plants greater than 25 MW. They are a mature Measurement of heat rate is likely to be- cially for plants that blend coal from different
technology, and most have been widely used come a critical issue in the coming years, be- sources. Therefore, the real-time measure-
for more than 20 years. cause the Clean Power Plan, finalized by the ment of coal heating value becomes another
The CEMS data provides an official record EPA in 2015, will rely, in part, on coal plant important parameter with a one-to-one effect
of the key power plant flue gas emissions. heat rate improvements to reduce CO2 emis- on heat input.
In the U.S., this data is reported to the En- sions by reducing the amount of fuel burned. Many plants have instrumentation and
vironmental Protection Agency (EPA). Plant The EPA is anticipated to use the heat input monitoring systems sufficient to determine
owners/operators are required to maintain the values reported by power plants’ CEMS to boiler heat output (and turbine performance)
systems and ensure that results meet the letter determine if the plants have reduced their on a continuous basis, but very few have the
of the law. A portion of that requirement is to heat rates to the required levels. capability of accurately determining boiler
POWER July 2016
at the member’s 350-MW coal-fired unit to surement uncertainty was the measurement
1. A continuous emissions moni-
investigate how accurately the actual boiler of stack gas flow rate.
toring system. Courtesy: EPRI
heat input could be determined when quality,
nonbiased CEMS data are available. First, a Best Practices Guideline
series of boiler efficiency test runs were un- To address this issue, in 2015, EPRI devel-
dertaken to calculate boiler efficiency and net oped a best practices guide to improve the
unit heat rate by methods based on ASME’s accuracy of the measurement of stack gas
Performance Test Codes (PTC) 4 and 46. flow rate.
Then, the values calculated from the test re- The project team sought to evaluate avail-
sults were compared to those obtained from able information on the performance of CO2
the CEMS. The tests were conducted at full, CEMS and continuous flow monitors, and
medium, and minimum load—approximately to identify the uncertainty and biases of
the same unit load levels utilized for the most measurement system parameters with the
recent RATA testing at this unit. greatest effect on measurement data quality.
The results were further refined through Then, using the knowledge gained regard-
the calculation of uncertainty of the boiler ing the uncertainty and biases of the system
efficiency and heat rate calculated by each parameters, the project aimed to recommend
method. These uncertainty calculations were enhancements to the operation, calibration,
performed by methods described in ASME maintenance, and auditing of these systems
PTC 19.1, Test Uncertainty. that would extend the usefulness of the
For the full-load test, gross heat rate cal- CEMS and flow monitors to provide a pri-
culated by the CEMS method was slightly mary means of unit heat rate determination.
higher than with the PTC 46 method. For the In support of this effort, EPRI developed
efficiency on a continuous basis, which medium-load test, the heat rate was almost a multi-faceted approach to identify the state
would be needed to complete the heat rate equal for the CEMS and PTC 46 methods. of current industry best practices as well as
calculation. One method of accurately deter- With the minimum-load test, the heat rate for a methodology for achieving reduced uncer-
mining boiler efficiency, the heat loss meth- the CEMS method was much lower than for tainty in the measurements. The approach
od, requires installation and maintenance of the PTC 46 method. The reasons behind the involved conducting an open literature
instrumentation to sample gas concentration non-predictable differences in heat rate were search pertaining to CEMS operation; con-
and temperature at the air heater inlet and not identified. tacting end-users for supplemental informa-
outlet. However, adequate sampling grids are The uncertainty analysis showed that the tion regarding CEMS operation, calibration,
expensive to install and difficult to maintain.
CEMS, which are capable of measuring
the concentration of CO2 in the stack gas
and calculating the flow rate of the exhaust
gas, have the potential to offer an alternative
method for a real-time (continuous) unit heat The key contributor to the high measure-
rate calculation without additional instru-
ments or labor-intensive processes. ment uncertainty was the measurement of
The issue with CEMS, though, is that the
accuracy required for a meaningful heat rate
stack gas flow rate.
value is much tighter than current CEMS
practices. With typical uncertainties greater
than 5%, CEMS could not be used to identify
a heat rate change of 2% to 4%, which will
potentially be required by the Clean Power uncertainty of the boiler efficiency value tune-ups, and maintenance practices; de-
Plan (assuming it survives the current legal using the CEMS method was greater than termining industry best practices related to
challenges). 5%, compared to an uncertainty of 0.29% pre-RATA flow monitor calibrations, refer-
using the ASME PTC 4 test method. Im- ence methods used, and pre-RATA adjust-
Understanding the Uncertainty of provements in the accuracy of the CEMS ments; summarizing the effects of different
CEMS Heat Rate Measurements could greatly reduce the uncertainty, but the reference method practices on measurement
Over the last several years, researchers at uncertainty of boiler efficiency determined uncertainty; and establishing target uncer-
the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) by this method is dependent on both the ac- tainties and identifying whether the instru-
have conducted several studies to identify the curacy of the CEMS measurements and the mentation can achieve these.
technology gaps and to propose and evaluate instrumentation used to measure the heat A model was developed to estimate the
actions required to use CEMS for heat rate output of the boiler. uncertainty contributions for the heat rate
monitoring. These studies have sought to While this plant site operated and main- calculation. The model allows estimation
better understand the current uncertainty of tained its CEMS beyond the minimum EPA of the uncertainties of the various measure-
CEMS measurements and the drivers of the requirements, the large differences in results ments used to calculate a unit heat rate—as
differences in uncertainty between CEMS and the uncertainties of the results strength- well as hourly heat input, including flue gas
and a precision boiler efficiency test. ened the notion that CEMS could not be used flow rate, flue gas CO2 concentration, the
In 2014, EPRI and a member utility con- to monitor or report heat rate with confi- carbon-based fuel factor, and the power out-
ducted a series of precision performance tests dence. The key contributor to the high mea- put (Figure 2). The model then propagated
|
rate values. The additional effort needed to
2. Flue gas sample ports and probe. Courtesy: EPRI
comply with the best practices was not con-
sidered significant and could be achieved at
most sites.
Continuing this study, researchers con-
ducted an “enhanced” CEMS audit test—
which they nicknamed “super RATA”—to
calculate correction factors to be applied to
the values of the flow and CO2 concentra-
tion reported by the CEMS. This enhanced
RATA measurement was performed using
best practices for minimizing the uncertainty
of CO2 and flow measurements. The preci-
sion heat rate testing was conducted immedi-
ately thereafter, again in full compliance with
ASME PTC 4 and 46.
The uncertainties were calculated for
the boiler efficiency and heat rate val-
ues determined by each method using the
methods described in ASME PTC 19.1,
Test Uncertainty. The gross heat rate value
calculated by the CEMS method, after ap-
plying the correction factors for flow and
CO2 concentration, was compared to that
determined via the precision test (PTC 46)
method for all test runs.
The heat rate indications obtained from
the CEMS and those obtained through pre-
cision testing were comparable. The differ-
ence in those values was smaller than the
uncertainty determined for the measure-
ments conducted by either method. (See
Stack Flow and CO2 Reference Method
Measurements for Continuous Emissions
Monitoring Systems (CEMS) Heat Rate
Determination: Application of Best Prac-
tices, EPRI report no. 3002007186, and
Evaluation of the Application of Continu-
ous Emissions Monitoring Systems for
Boiler and Heat Rate Monitoring, EPRI
report no. 3002007187.)
Ongoing Work
these individual measurement uncertainties Application of Best Practices In 2016, to further optimize the process and
to the final heat rate result. The results of the Subsequently, a further study applied the best fully understand the best possible uncer-
model were used to focus the best practices practices for CEMs RATA reference methods tainty, an intense lab calibration of the flow
guide on the areas responsible for the largest to a full-scale CEMS heat rate measurement measurement equipment will be done at ven-
contributions to uncertainty. on a 670-MW coal-fired utility boiler. dor and National Institute of Standards and
Project results were reported in a “best The host site had an optimal CEMS sys- Technology facilities. Those calibrations will
practices” guide for operating, calibrating, tem that greatly exceeded EPA requirements. permit EPRI and its members to better under-
and maintaining a CO2 CEMS and associated The CEMS installation location for this site stand the costs and time involved to further
flow monitors to provide the highest degree was also near ideal with respect to flow, and reduce the measurement uncertainty asso-
of data accuracy practical with currently the CO2 instrumentation was well calibrated. ciated with stack gas flow measurements.
available instrumentation and hardware. The guidelines promulgated in the EPRI Plans are to use these optimally calibrated
Recommendations are included on sampling best practices guide were followed in the instruments during another “super-RATA” to
systems; analyzers; calibration gases; instru- preparations for and the execution of a special quantify any improvements in flow measure-
ment types, calibration, and placement; stack RATA test. The sampling, analytical, quality ment and unit heat input. ■
diameter determination; and RATA test tech- assurance, and quality control procedures fol- —Sam Korellis, PE ([email protected]) is
niques. (See A Best Practices Guideline for lowed during the RATA program were above a principal project manager of EPRI’s Heat
Understanding and Minimizing Uncertainty and beyond the minimum EPA requirements. Rate Improvement program. Chuck Dene
in CO2 and Stack Flow Measurements, EPRI The study findings demonstrated that very ([email protected]) is a principal project
report no. 3002006147.) good relative accuracy can be obtained, im- manager in EPRI’s Integrated Environmen-
proving the uncertainty of the CEMS heat tal Controls Program.
POWER July 2016
Simplify MATS Compliance with
Particulate Matter Continuous
Emission Monitors
Now that power plant operators have some experience under their belts related
to Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) compliance, it’s time to reevaluate
the options for demonstrating compliance.
Rick J. Krenzke
S
tarting with the Clean Air Act of 1970 closer to their PM compliance limit, which als limits, an EGU can conduct quarterly
and its updates, compliance for util- will help limit the risk of noncompliance. manual reference method testing for metals
ity and industry stationary sources has MATS was promulgated in February 2012 or manual reference method testing for PM,
only increased in complexity. The Environ- and the industry had three years to demon- the surrogate for non-mercury metal HAPs.
mental Protection Agency (EPA) has targeted strate compliance (with a possible one-year Alternately, if the EGU chooses to use PM
many industries that emit criteria pollutants extension in some cases). Coal- and oil- as a surrogate, it can install a continuous PM
and hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) and has fired source operators had to analyze the monitor and operate it as either a CEMS or
written regulations to ensure that affected regulations and define a strategy for mercury, a continuous parametric monitoring system
industries control the release of pollutants non-mercury HAP metals, and acid gases (CPMS).
by implementing the most effective control compliance, based on the type of existing If the PM monitor is operated as CEMS,
technologies. equipment they operated and the potential for a correlation curve must be generated by
Most recently, the Mercury and Air Toxics add-on abatement equipment. statistically comparing CEMS data to refer-
Standards, known as MATS, has been added When considering non-mercury metal ence method data as set forth in Performance
to the list of regulations. MATS establishes HAPs, the choice of PM as a surrogate sim- Specification 11. If the PM monitor is oper-
emission limits for three HAP categories: plified the strategy for many sources. Given ated as a CPMS, reference method PM test-
mercury, non-mercury metals, and acid gas- that many PM monitor vendors were devel- ing is used to demonstrate compliance with
es. Importantly, particulate matter (PM) is a oping monitors to comply with this new reg- the MATS PM limits at normal operation.
surrogate for non-mercury metals. ulation and historic data using PM monitors The response of the PM monitor that cor-
This article focuses on the EPA’s require- for compliance demonstration purposes in responds to this reference method PM test-
ment for Maximum Achievable Control the U.S. was limited, many source owners ing is recorded and is considered to be the
Technology (MACT) as it applies to electric defaulted to the quarterly PM stack testing source-specific operating limit. As long as
generating units (EGUs). An EGU must dem- option until PM monitor data, history, and the 30-day rolling average output of the PM
onstrate compliance with the MATS limits, resources could be researched. monitor stays below the source-specific oper-
and MATS offers options for demonstrating Now, four years into the MATS compliance ating limit, the source is considered in com-
compliance. An EGU can use continuous era, enough historic data and improved moni- pliance with MATS for non-mercury metal
emission monitoring systems (CEMS) or a tors exist to potentially change the PM com- HAPs using PM as a surrogate.
combination of CEMS and periodic testing pliance strategy to one that uses a PM monitor
using conventional reference methods. By instead of quarterly PM stack testing. The Changing Role of Pollutant
understanding these options, source owners Monitors
can implement strategies that allow facilities CEMS vs. CPMS Pollutant monitors play a critical role in
to set their source-specific operating limit To comply with the non-mercury HAP met- demonstrating continuous compliance.
|
Table 1. Summary of PM measurement options. Source: TRC Companies Inc.

■ 1950s and 1960s: The Germans pio-
Options Pros Cons neered and began studying PM detection
Quarterly stack monitoring No initial capital expense for Can only see a snapshot of emis- technologies.
PM monitor and installation. No sions once per quarter. It can be ■ 1970s: PM technologies came to the U.S.
maintenance costs. challenging to schedule emission in the form of opacity monitors. Opacity
testing firm during busy seasons. was considered a surrogate for PM and
Do not know results until a week Performance Specification 1 (also known
after the testing is complete. as PS1) was promulgated in 1975.
PM CEMS: full continuous Continuous data and can be used Correlation testing (calibrating ■ 1996: The Hazardous Waste Combustion
emissions monitoring system over full calibration range, so monitor) can be difficult on highly MACT rule was the first to require the use
calibrated by a correlation operating limit is the MATS PM controlled sources. Have to conduct of PM monitors. The need for a perfor-
curve (PS-11) allowable. tests over three distinct emission mance specification to validate PM moni-
levels. Correlation testing can be tor data was proposed (PS-11).
expensive, especially if PM spiking
■ 1999: The Portland Cement MACT stan-
is necessary.
dard mandated PM monitors, but not until
PM CPMS: continuous param- Continuous data and the correlation The source-specific operation limit PS-11 was promulgated (2004).
eter monitoring system testing (setting the source-specific will always be set below the MATS ■ 2012: MATS was promulgated, allow-
operating limit) is comparatively PM limit, so the source will not
ing certain PM CEMS detection tech-
easy. have as much flexibility in emission
nologies for filterable particulate matter
variation before corrective actions
must be taken. (FPM) compliance demonstrations. The
PM monitors could be used as a true PM
These monitors, based on a range of analyti- have expanded the availability of PM moni- CEMS or PM CPMS.
cal detection technologies, can qualify and tors beyond those used to measure opacity.
quantify target compounds, and when qual- Importantly, modern PM monitors can ex- PM monitoring technologies include: light
ity assurance and maintenance procedures press PM emissions as a concentration, thus scattering, beta attenuation (the two most
for the systems are defined, they can provide allowing comparison to a PM emissions commonly deployed technologies), probe
defensible emissions data. limit. electrification, optical scintillation, and light
Gaseous monitors are the most common Here’s a condensed timeline of PM moni- extinction. From these measurement tech-
CEMS, but recent technological advances toring development: nologies and the diligent work of instrument
vendors, today PM monitors can detect and
indicate changes in the amount of FPM in
exhaust gases and are accurate and durable
enough to be utilized as CEMS.
Unlike traditional gaseous monitors, PM
monitors cannot be calibrated like a CEMS
that measures gaseous pollutants. Instead of
using calibration gases, the monitor output
signal must be correlated to a physical PM
measurement that is obtained using an EPA
reference method stack test for PM.
In general, the PM detection principle is a
function of the size, shape, color, concentra-
tion, and material of the PM and is therefore
source specific. Accordingly, PM monitors
must be evaluated for each source over a
range of operating conditions. Furthermore,
PM monitors are different from traditional
gaseous monitors.
It’s important to note that MATS allows
choices in how the PM monitor can be used.
When the regulation was first enacted, power
companies had to quickly choose a com-
pliance strategy. Among the choices were
the use of a PM monitor as a full CEMS or
the use of a PM monitor as a CPMS. Now,
with the experience gained through various
approaches, the time is right to revisit com-
pliance demonstration strategies using con-
tinuous PM monitors as CEMS or CPMS.
Three Options
Table 1 details the three options for power
POWER July 2016
■ Set a source-specific operating limit based
Table 2. Range of costs for purchasing and maintaining PM systems.
on these results.
Source: TRC Companies Inc.
■ Operate and maintain equipment to
Option Task Cost achieve a 30-day PM CPMS average that
Quarterly stack monitoring Using PM as a surrogate for non-Hg $7K–$10K per quarter does not exceed the established operating
metals HAPs limit. (MATS allows the monitor output
Testing for total non-Hg metals $15K–$18K per quarter signal that correlates to the highest 1-hour
HAPS or individual non-Hg metals CPMS output for existing units only; for
HAPs new EGUs it is the average output.)
Using PM as a surrogate for Purchase and install PM monitor Depends on type of monitor and ■ Reset the source-specific operating limit
non-mercury (Hg) metals haz- installation contractor annually.
ardous air pollutants (HAPS), Annual PM monitor maintenance Depends on type of monitor and
installing a PM monitor, and plant maintenance crew
The mechanism selected for determining
using it as a continuous emis- the source-specific operating limit will de-
sion monitor (CEMS). Use of Develop PS-12 correlation curve $24K–$30K, assuming the three pend on the results of the performance tests.
monitor as CEMS would require (minimum of 15 test runs across specific grain loading conditions
Once again, the source has choices. Under
certification (correlation curve) three specific grain loading condi- can be easily provided
tions)
MATS, if a PM monitor is being used as a
by PS-12.
CPMS, setting the source-specific operating
Fly ash spiking to generate grain $50K–$100K, depending on how
limit is different for a new source than it is for
loading conditions needed to build a many attempts are made at gen-
an existing source. For a new source, if the
correlation curve that meets PS-12 erating the required grain loading
guidelines condition performance tests indicate PM emissions are
less than 75% of the MATS limit, the source-
Annual Relative Response Audit $7K–$10K
specific operating limit can be extrapolated
(RRA). The RRA is three test runs
to equal 75% of the MATS limit. Only new
to determine compliance with the
MATS limits and determine if the sources are eligible for this extrapolation.
resulting PM is still predicted accu- If the performance test results are greater
rately by the correlation curve. than or equal to 75% of the MACT limit, the
Using PM as a surrogate for Purchase and install PM monitor Depends on type of monitor and in-
average PM CPMS output value (milliamps)
non-Hg metals HAPS, install- stallation contractor will be the source-specific operating limit.
ing a PM monitor and using If the 30-day rolling average output of the
Annual PM monitor maintenance Depends on type of monitor and
it as a continuous parameter PM CPMS exceeds the source-specific oper-
plant maintenance crew
monitoring system (CPMS). ating limit, the source must take corrective
Use of monitor as CPMS would Initial testing to determine compli- $7K–$10K actions as follows:
require setting a source-spe- ance with MATS and set the source-
cific operating limit (monitor specific operating limit
■ Within 48 hours of an exceedance, a vi-
output signal) that would not be Annual testing to determine com- $7K–$10K sual inspection of the air pollution control
exceeded by the 30-day rolling pliance with MATS and reset the device (APCD) must be performed. If the
average output. source-specific operating limit
inspection identifies the cause, corrective
If source exceeds the source-spe- $7K–$10K action must be taken and the PM CPMS
cific operating limit with the 30-day must be returned to operation.
rolling monitor output and correc- ■ Within 30 days of the exceedance, or at
tive action is needed, the source
the time of the annual performance (com-
will need to conduct testing to de-
pliance) tests, whichever comes first, a
termine compliance with MATS and
reset the source-specific operating PM performance test must be conducted
limit to demonstrate compliance with the PM
MACT limit and to reestablish the source-
plant operators to consider with respect to most favorable reporting option. The facil- specific operating limit.
demonstrating compliance with the non- ity will then need to conduct performance ■ The compliance demonstration and reset
mercury metal HAP limit using PM as a testing using EPA Reference Methods to of the operating limit must be implement-
surrogate. demonstrate compliance with the MATS ed within 45 days of the exceedance.
Most have followed periodic manual test- PM emission limit. ■ Additional testing is not required for any
ing or the use of a PM continuous monitor The next step is to establish a source-spe- exceedance that occurs between the initial
as a PM CEMS. But the time has come to cific operating limit. To do this, the facility exceedance and the performance test trig-
take another look at the overlooked option of will need to perform the following tasks: gered by that exceedance.
using a PM continuous monitor in a CPMS
mode. ■ Conduct a performance test. Before devising a strategy for setting
What’s needed to get started? ■ Record all CPMS output values (milli- source-specific operating limits make sure
To begin, the facility must determine amps or other signal). you:
the PM limit from MATS. PM limits vary ■ Determine 1-hour average CPMS output
based on fuel type and whether the source readings (milliamps) during the perfor- ■ Apply the proper PM MACT limit based
is new or existing. MATS allows PM to be mance test. (Note: If you perform three on the source type.
measured and reported in lb/MMBtu or 3-hour test runs, you generate nine 1-hour ■ Have an instrument that indicates the pres-
lb/MWh, and the EGU should select the CPMS averages.) ence of and changes in PM in the exhaust.
|
■ Understand the ways to establish the PM (new or existing units), this is the operat- action exercises. But this can lead to compli-
CPMS operating limits. ing limit. It may be useful to adjust operat- cations.
■ Understand what triggers corrective action. ing parameters to produce PM emissions For example, when annual compliance
■ Understand how operational variables af- closer to the MATS limit. and operational limit reset time comes
fect PM emissions (PM CPMS output). ■ If the PM performance test results are be- around, this strategy relies on being able
■ Are aware that operating limits are reset low but close or equal to 75% of MACT to set the unit near the same emission rate
every year or when an exceedance occurs. limit (new units only are candidates for (same monitor output) for each annual test.
extrapolation), there may be no benefit If the PM CPMS calibration (correlation
Using measurement results and what’s to extrapolating to 75%. It may be useful between the monitor output and the actual
known about the effects of unit operation on to adjust operating parameters to produce PM emission rate) stays the same, this is
not an issue, but if it changes, there is a
chance that the facility will fail the perfor-
PM monitors must be evaluated for each mance test.
This strategy usually requires some in-
source over a range of operating conditions. house or preliminary PM testing to verify or
confirm that the PM CPMS output as com-
pared to actual PM emission limits is still ac-
the CPMS output, source owners can develop PM emissions closer to the MATS limit. curate, especially if the target is a value very
a strategy for setting source-specific operat- ■ If the PM performance test results are well near the MACT limit.
ing limits that provide the facility with the below the 75% of MACT limit, extrapolate
most flexibility to operate the source. to 75% (if the unit is a candidate) or adjust Cost Comparison
The strategy selected will depend on how operating parameters to produce PM emis- In addition to compliance risk, it’s also im-
close emissions are to the PM MATS limit sions closer to the MATS limits when set- portant to understand the costs associated
under normal operations. As an example, the ting the source-specific operating limit. with each of the three approaches described.
following scenarios could shape the strat- Table 2 provides a comparison of the three
egy for setting the source-specific operating Many source owners set the source-spe- options for demonstrating compliance with
limit: cific operating limits near the MACT limit the PM standard.
because it provides more room for operation- Each of these approaches has advantages
■ If the PM performance test results are al variations, reduces the need for APCD and disadvantages that must be considered
above or equal to 75% of MACT limit maintenance, and can avoid costly corrective when determining a MATS compliance
strategy. Working with an expert air pollu-
tion monitoring firm allows fossil fuel–fired
power generators to develop a compliance
strategy based on sound measurement data.
FIRE YOUR WAY TO TOP Prudent power generators will capitalize on
the choice that the MATS regulations provide
PERFORMANCE AND EFFICIENCY when determining compliance. The source
can select a surrogate for a class of HAPs
(acid gases and non-Hg HAP metal). The
source can then choose if it wants to comply
by using manual testing methods or a pollut-
ant monitor and, in the case of using PM as
a surrogate for non-Hg metals and using a
PM monitor to demonstrate compliance, the
owner can choose how to use the PM moni-
tor—as a CEMS or a CPMS.
The success of any compliance strategy is
proven over time. As more data are generated
QUICK SHOT® QS-300 and operators understand how fuel variations
A better solution for your surface condenser cleaning
and operating parameter changes affect the
compliance status of a unit, the compliance ap-
proach and strategy for a facility will be refined.
The U.S. industrial and regulatory com-
munities are investing heavily in the goal
of reducing power plant HAP emissions
The QUICK SHOT® QS-300 offers a power-assisted trigger and ergonomic design
through MATS. This investment and subse-
that obliterates tube deposits on contact, leaving condenser tubes spotless and
immediately increasing heat exchange eficiency and performance. quent operating history may be creating the
Naturally, it’s from Goodway. road map for other countries to accomplish
the same goals. ■
CALL 888-364-7745 —Rick Krenzke (rkrenzke@trcsolutions.
www.goodway.com com) is a project director in TRC Com-
panies Inc.’s Air Measurement Services
Practice in Austin, Texas.
POWER July 2016
Emissions Catalyst Issues for
Fast-Start Combined Cycle Power
Plants
When gas-fired plants are required to cycle more than they were designed for,
added stress on plant components isn’t the only consequence. You also
need to pay closer attention to turbine catalyst systems.
David S. Moelling, PE and Daniel W. Ott
T
raditionally, many combined cycle gas swings of 50% in less than 30 minutes are by bypass or other venting is the method of
turbine (CCGT) power plant units were common several times each day to meet de- moderating the thermal stress. Lower pres-
designed and permitted for a baseload or mand requirements. Also common are daily sures produce lower saturation temperatures,
similar operating profile. Startups and shut- shutdowns during periods of low demand, of- which result in lower TEG temperatures at
downs were expected but typically were in the ten during daytime hours, when renewable en- the NOx catalysts. This tends to produce a
tens per year. These were often an equal com- ergy such as solar is available or at night when temperature lag at the catalyst during startup.
bination of cold, warm, and hot starts. combined heat and power demand is reduced. For HRSGs with once-through HP steam
Lower total demand in many markets, generators, feedwater flows once through econo-
coupled with higher fuel prices, resulted in Key Features of Fast-Start and mizer, evaporator, and superheater segments of
many units needing to change to two-shift Extended Range CCGT Plants the same tube flow path. There is less thermal
cycling service. Plants would shut down for Fast-start plants rely on rapid start and loading mass in the HP evaporator segments and no
a few hours overnight and then start to meet of the GT to reach full power as well as com- steam drum. Fast-start plants often use once-
daytime loads. Units with 200 to 250 starts pliant emissions status for the combustors. through sections for this reason. For these plants,
per year were not uncommon. This rapid loading puts large amounts of hot temperatures at the NOx catalysts approach tar-
Not only did frequent starts stress plant gas into a relatively hot/warm/cold heat recov- get temperatures faster during startups.
systems and components with respect to ther- ery steam generator (HRSG). The HRSG then
mal loads, but operational issues such as con- begins to increase steam pressure and flow Low-Load Parking Plants
trol of steam temperatures and water and gas with heat-up. This flow increase lags the GT Most CCGT units with new extended range
side chemistry also became more difficult. ramps and challenges the limits on pressure turbine systems can decrease GT load to
Furthermore, regulators began to pay more rise in the high-pressure steam system. Both about 40% of full power. TEG temperatures
attention to higher stack emissions during flow and temperature of the produced steam are often greater at the inlet to the HRSG,
frequent startups. More recently, higher use are controlled/bypassed to meet the initial but mass flow is considerably reduced.
of renewables such as wind and solar gen- conditions of the steam turbine startup. Drum pressures are usually regulated at the
eration created a demand for fast-responding The turbine exhaust gas (TEG) condi- floor pressure of the system (typically 1,000
backup and reserve capacity. tions from the turbines reflect the lower ef- to 1,200 psig). These set a floor for tempera-
In response, suppliers began to offer ficiency at part loads with higher exhaust tures into the catalysts of 550F to 570F. Op-
fast-start CCGT plants to meet this demand temperatures. These temperatures can make eration of emissions controls at lower mass
with equipment specifically designed for it difficult to control steam temperatures with flows must be carefully controlled to avoid
fast start and loading. Existing plants began sprays or other attemperation methods such excessive ammonia slip.
to implement extended range burners in the as steam bypass or dilution air. Some GT systems like the Alstom GT24/26
GT systems so that lower unit loads could be For recirculating evaporator plants with with sequential combustion can go to very
maintained while in emissions compliance. steam drums, pressure ramps are typically low loads (10% to 20% of full power). This
Some plants could shift from two-shift cy- set by the allowed thermal stress imposed on can produce low TEG temperatures at the HP
cling to a low-load parking condition. the steam drum. High-pressure (HP) steam evaporator exits. Figures 3 and 4 (see the on-
Figure 1 compares the operating profile of drums can be from 5 to 7 inches thick, de- line version of this article at powermag.com)
a conventional combined cycle baseload unit pending on size and maximum design pres- show the temperature profile at full load and
with that of a modern cycling unit. sures. This thick steel wall can easily have at parking load of a GT26. Temperature at low
Figure 2 shows operating data for a large large thermal stresses as the interior surface load is 520F. This plant was in a jurisdiction
combined cycle frame turbine unit. Load heats up or cools down. Control of pressure not requiring emissions catalyst, but this tem-
|
exhaust entering the SCR/CO catalyst system
1. Conventional baseload vs. cycling operation. Courtesy: Environex Inc.
vary. Exhaust temperatures will often depend
Conventional baseload unit on the pressure and steam production in the
80 HP steam system and can vary by +/–100F en-
70 tering the catalyst system. Also, because the
lower-load operation introduces lower flow
Operating hours (%)
60 into the same fixed cross-section, the flow dis-

50 tribution differs from baseload, imparting gas
velocity, ammonia concentration, and temper-
40 ature variations at the catalyst inlet.
30 Turbine exhaust NOx and CO also spike
during load changes, which can affect the
20
stack emissions and require greater emis-
10 sions reduction to maintain compliance
during short averaging periods. Maintain-
0
Below 60 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 ing peak SCR system performance and low
Load (% of baseload) levels of both stack NOx and ammonia slip
through these cycles requires precise control
Modern cycling unit
80 of ammonia injection. In some cases this may
require updates to the ammonia flow control
70 logic or even upgrades to the equipment and
additional monitoring hardware.
Operating hours (%)
60
An example of SCR operation with turbine
50 cycling is shown in Figure 5. The variations
40 from cycling operation are most apparent in the
ammonia slip (the unreacted ammonia), shown
30
in orange. Variations of 3 to 4 ppm are com-
20 mon. These variations in ammonia slip are most
often caused by a lag in response time of the
10
ammonia vaporization and injection system in
0 reacting to changing ammonia demands. Some
Below 60 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
Load (% of baseload) progress is being made to improve response
times, but more improvement is needed.
2. Typical cycling operation of a modern frame turbine unit. Courtesy: In the permitting phase for modern cycling
Environex Inc. unit sites, permit applications must take into
■ Exhaust flow (klb/hr/10) ■ Load (MW/10) ■ Turbine exit NOx (ppmvdc) ■ Turbine exit CO (ppmvdc) account these variations, but they currently do
not. Regulations at the state and federal levels
120 60
Load (MW/10) and CT exit NOx/Exit
have reduced best available control technology

100 50 (BACT) guidelines for turbines to between 2
Exhaust flow (klb/hr/10)
and 5 ppm NOx and 2 to 5 ppm ammonia slip,

80 40 both with averaging times as little as 30 minutes.
CO (ppmvdc)
60 30 In ozone nonattainment areas, air permit limits

of 2 ppm NOx and 2 ppm ammonia slip are nor-
40 20 mal. These BACT limits required by regulations
are not practical in cases with cycling operation,
20 10
as illustrated in Figure 5.
0 0 Fast-start combined cycle systems are ca-
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 pable of startup in 10 minutes. Conventional
Time (days) SCR/CO system designs have demonstrated
perature and low mass flows could be an issue Prior to 2001, turbine catalyst systems were startup in approximately 30 minutes. Though
for current catalyst designs. designed primarily for steady-state, basel- the difference of 20 minutes may seem small,
oad operation. These systems had generous much happens in those 20 minutes, includ-
Challenges for Emissions Catalyst startup/shutdown windows, normally of 1 to ing heating of the SCR catalyst and ammo-
Operation 3 hours, and typically operated above 80% of nia vaporization system that are required for
Catalyst-based systems for control of CO, maximum load. Between 2001 and 2005, the optimum performance. Figures 6 and 7 com-
NOx, and volatile organic compounds (VOC) startup/shutdown windows were reduced to pare a conventional SCR system start (with a
are strongly affected by the conditions of the 30 to 60 minutes. Today, these systems can be 1-hour startup window) to a modern fast-start
turbine exhaust gas. Oxidation catalysts are required to start up or shut down in 10 min- system (with a 10-minute start requirement).
passive catalysts used to oxidize CO and VOC utes, while at the same time dealing with more Even with a warm start, the fast-start system
to CO2. Selective catalytic reduction (SCR) frequent cycling, faster ramp rates, and wider struggles to achieve compliance within 15 min-
systems are active catalyst systems that re- load swings than ever before. utes. In many cases, particularly for cold starts,
quire injection of a reagent containing ammo- As a unit cycles, the temperature, flow rate, SCR systems cannot meet, or have difficulty
nia (NH3) to reduce NOx to N2 and H2O. and concentration of emissions in the turbine meeting, the 10-minute startup requirement.
POWER July 2016
5. SCR operation for a cycling turbine unit. Variations from cycling operation are 8. Bad environment. Units in reserve
most apparent in the ammonia slip (the unreacted ammonia), shown in red. Variations of 3 to 4 or standby for rapid start can experience high
ppm are common. Courtesy: Environex Inc. corrosion levels in fin tubes, as shown here,
■ Load (MW/10) ■ Stack NOx (ppmvdc) ■ Ammonia flow (lb/hr/10) ■ Turbine exit NOx (ppmvdc) because the deposited material tends to be
■ SCR temperature (°F/10) ■ Ammonia slip (ppmvdc) hygroscopic and corrosive in humid environ-
70 35 ments. Courtesy: Tetra Engineering Group Inc.
Load, ammonia flow, SCR temperature
Stack NOx, turbine exit NOx and

60 30
ammonia concentration
50 25
40 20
30 15
20 10
10 5
0 0
0 12 24 36 48 60 72 84 96 108
Time (hours) ■ In some cases, where practical, a return to
anhydrous ammonia systems to eliminate the
6. Conventional SCR system startup. Courtesy: Environex Inc. need to vaporize the water (up to 80% water
■ Stack NOx (ppmvdc) ■ Ammonia slip (ppmvdc) ■ Turbine exit NOx (ppmvdc) ■ SCR temperature (˚F/10)
by weight) in aqueous ammonia solutions.
■ Load (MW/10)
Modern emissions control systems are
60
required to convert a greater percentage of
50 emissions in engine exhaust, meet lower
40 stack emissions limits, and do so over short-
er averaging periods. All of these changes
30 require greater engineering and higher cost
20 for both new and retrofit systems. Opera-
tors of modern turbines need to provide ad-
10 ditional oversight and maintenance of their
0 emission control systems to ensure they
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 continuously provide reliable performance.
Time (minutes)
7. Modern fast-start SCR system startup. Courtesy: Environex Inc. Integrated Fast-Start Management
Required
■ Stack NOx (ppmvdc) ■ Ammonia slip (ppmvdc) ■ Turbine exit NOx (ppmvdc) ■ SCR temperature (˚F/10)
Higher ammonia slip and potentially greater
■ Load (MW/10) ■ Stack CO (ppmvdc)
SO2 conversion in cycling and fast-start units
60
create additional challenges for control of
50 sulfur-bearing deposits in the colder HRSG
40 areas. Low-pressure evaporators and econo-
mizers are particularly at risk.
30
Both current cycling and high-cycling
20 fast-start units can be at risk. Units in reserve
10 or standby for rapid start can experience high
corrosion levels in fin tubes (Figure 8), as the
0 deposited material tends to be hygroscopic
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Time (minutes)
and corrosive in humid environments. More
frequent cleaning of gas-side tube surfaces
To bridge this gap between conventional and without packing and with more heat trans- may be required to prevent excessive back-
fast-start requirements, SCR system designs are fer surface to minimize heating time. pressure and corrosion on HRSG systems.
being modified to remove thermal mass, im- ■ Catalyst designs that offer improved for- Because the response of emissions cata-
prove response times of the ammonia injection mulations with wider operating tempera- lysts to fast startups is a key element in plant
and continuous emission monitoring systems ture windows. performance and longevity, the HRSG, steam
(CEMS), and use modified catalyst products/ ■ Catalyst frame/seal designs that allow for cycle, and emissions control systems in cy-
designs that can reduce start times. Even with more rapid temperature ramp rates. cling and fast-start CCGT plants must be
the modifications, 10-minute starts are often not ■ CEMS systems and NOx analyzers with considered as a single system with multiple
achieved in practice from the SCR/CO system faster response capability, as little as 5 sec- operational limits and goals. ■
perspective, as shown in Figure 7. Some of these onds compared to 30 to 120 seconds for —David S. Moelling, PE (david.moelling@
modifications include: extractive sampling systems. tetra-eng.com) is chief engineer for Tetra
■ Improved controls systems that are more Engineering Group Inc. and Daniel W. Ott
■ Ammonia vaporizers with preheat capability. capable of analyzing/predicting transients ([email protected]) is president of
■ Smaller ammonia vaporization chambers in catalyst system performance. Environex Inc.
July 2016 POWER | www.powermag.com 33

Circulating Fluidized Bed Dry
Scrubber Effectively Reduces
Emissions
Courtesy: ANDRITZ
When owners of the Big Stone Plant researched air quality control system
technology, they considered all available options and eventually settled on a
design that was not in widespread use. Now that the three-year $384 million
project is complete, they have no regrets that they chose a circulating fluidized
bed dry scrubber.
Robert Puhr
L
ike many coal-fired power plants in We know we made the right decision.” Phinney’s employer, Otter Tail Power
the early 2010s, the Big Stone Plant in Phinney was the commissioning manager Co., is the majority (53.9%) owner of Big
eastern South Dakota was faced with a for the Big Stone AQCS project (Figure 1). Stone, with NorthWestern Energy and Mon-
question: What should be done at the plant in He transferred to Big Stone in the hope of tana-Dakota Utilities also holding shares.
order to meet new federal and state emissions being part of the undertaking—a nearly $400 Otter Tail people staffed the project and op-
requirements? Its 40-something-year-old de- million investment—and quickly became erate the 495-MW power plant, which burns
sign would need an air quality control system a vital member of Project Manager Mark subbituminous coal and has been online
(AQCS) upgrade if it intended to continue Rolfes’ team. since 1975.
operating in the future. Choosing what tech- The first step for Rolfes was to obtain
nology to install was a key decision. In the permits and approvals from the three states Deciding on the Best Available
end, Big Stone’s decision-makers opted for that regulate the Big Stone Plant (Minnesota, Retrofit Technology
circulating dry scrubbing technology rather North Dakota, and South Dakota). Phinney The driving force for the project was the
than selecting a wet scrubber or more “tradi- set to work during that time helping review need for Big Stone to meet upcoming fed-
tional” dry scrubber design. all the specifications and layouts, gathering eral regulations, including new mercury
“The comfortable thing to do would operating data, and meeting with technology standards and regional regulations to reduce
have been to choose the technology that suppliers in order to obtain accurate bids for haze over Minnesota’s Boundary Waters
has been around for decades,” said Kirk the project. He later supported the construc- Canoe Area, a popular outdoor recreational
Phinney. “But we did our homework and tion phase and served as commissioning area. The existing air pollution control sys-
concluded that a circulating dry scrubber manager. tem on the boiler was a baghouse—effective
would help us well into the future. Today, “It has been very exciting to be involved at removing dust and particulates, but not
we have one of this industry’s top-perform- with the project all the way through,” Phin- gaseous emissions or mercury. After doing a
ing retrofit units in terms of SO2 reduction. ney said. thorough evaluation of the best available ret-
POWER July 2016
1. Big Stone Plant’s air qual- 2. Removing particulate. Fly ash and byproduct from the circulating fluidized bed
ity control system. (Left to right) Erik scrubber is collected in the pulse jet fabric filter hoppers, shown here. Courtesy: ANDRITZ
Fladhammer, project engineer; Kirk Phinney,
commissioning manager; and Scot Ojard,
ANDRITZ project manager, with part of the
circulating dry scrubber and pulse jet fabric
filter in the background. Courtesy: ANDRITZ
rofit technology, Big Stone’s management gases,” Petty continued. “Other important the venturi section, independent from the
decided to pursue a dry scrubber (shown in benefits are a lower capital cost, simpler reagent feed. The byproduct is collected
the opening photo). design, lower water use, no wastewater dis- downstream in a pulse jet fabric filter (Fig-
“Flue gas cleaning with a dry scrubber is charge, and the ability to remove all pollut- ure 2) and then metered to recirculate some
today an attractive alternative to wet scrub- ants, except carbon monoxide and nitrous back into the scrubber vessel (Figure 3). The
bers, even for large coal-fired boilers,” oxides, in one step.” remainder is diverted into the ash-handling
said Paul Petty, director of Applications “We went through a very rigorous process system for disposal.
and Technology for ANDRITZ’s air pol- to evaluate the technical offerings,” Phin- ANDRITZ’s project scope included sup-
lution control business in North America. ney said. “Our evaluation concluded that the plying the 34-foot-diameter CFB scrubber,
“It was impossible to make that statement circulating dry scrubber had further room to gas humidification system, reagent system,
when I started in the business. But much perform than the SDA and would not put us gas recirculation system, byproduct recircu-
has changed.” at the limits of the technology.” lation/removal system, pulse jet fabric filter
Spray dry absorber (SDA) technology In evaluating suppliers, it came down to (Figure 4), powder-activated carbon injection
had been the traditional dry scrubbing solu- experience. “ANDRITZ had six installations system for enhanced mercury capture, and
tion for power plants requiring large SO2 re- at that time—not a huge number, but enough waste ash removal and storage system. The
moval rates. The downside of SDA systems for us to feel confident,” Phinney said. “The company also supplied ductwork, piping, ac-
is the potential for corrosion due to the cre- other supplier had one.” cess points, platforms, logic for the distrib-
ation of lime slurries and the need to quickly uted control system, and support steel for the
dry the slurry droplets in the scrubber ves- The Circulating Fluidized Bed scrubber and lime silo.
sel. Another drawback is that SDA systems Scrubber “In simple terms, the contract we had with
are able to remove only about 85% to 95% The way the system works is by direct- Big Stone was for everything above the foun-
of the SO2. ing flue gas into the bottom of a circulat- dations for the scrubbing and waste ash han-
“Plants today are looking to remove 98%+ ing fluidized bed (CFB) vessel, where it is dling,” said Scot Ojard, project manager for
which, before the advent of circulating dry turned upwards and passes through a grid ANDRITZ.
scrubbing technology, was only possible with of venturis. Hydrated lime and recirculated One twist at Big Stone was that the CFB
much more expensive wet scrubbing technol- byproduct is introduced below the venturis scrubber needed to be a dual-train configura-
ogy,” Petty said. and gets evenly mixed and dispersed into tion due to its size. The practical limit for a
“The most important advantage of circu- the flue gas. single train is around 400 MW. This was the
lating dry scrubbing is the ability to achieve Cooling water spray (which can be waste- first dual-train installation in North America
this 98%+ reduction of SO2 and other acid water from boiler blowdown) is added above for ANDRITZ.
|
July 2016 POWER www.powermag.com
www.powermag.com 35
project,” said Erik Fladhammer, project
3. Scrubbing emissions. This image shows the scrubber vessel’s waste ash pickup
point, including the fluidizing air ring and ash transport lines. Courtesy: ANDRITZ
engineer for Otter Tail. “It has been a very
good relationship. The discussions have al-
ways been open. Scot and his team came up
through the technical side. Their suggestions
are practical and it is clear that these guys
knew how to build and run scrubbers.”
Construction began in spring 2013. The
plant was taken offline in early 2015 for a
planned outage to do all the tie-ins and ex-
tensive boiler work to increase the surface
area. “When we came back online, we moved
along quite well,” Phinney said.
“During the commissioning process, we
used our newest computational flow dy-
namic model studies to optimize the turn-
ing vanes at the bottom of the scrubber
inlet to improve the dispersement of recir-
culated byproduct materials. This improves
Big Stone’s ability to run efficiently at low
loads,” Ojard said. “Since then, the custom-
er has taken over operations and signed all
acceptance certificates.”
“ANDRITZ gave us excellent perfor-
mance guarantees for SO2 removal, availabil-
ity, and lime consumption,” Phinney said. “If
I had to do it all over again, I would do it the
same way and with the same suppliers. The
people are technically smart, practical, and
no-nonsense. They fit the company personal-
ity at Otter Tail very well, and we did good
4. Puffing bags. The air reservoir and pulse valves for the pulse jet fabric filter bag cleaning work together.”
system are shown here. Courtesy: ANDRITZ
Although Otter Tail wasn’t willing to re-
lease actual scrubber performance data, the
company did acknowledge that Big Stone’s
uncontrolled monthly average SO2 emission
rate in 2014 was 0.910 lb/MMBtu. It said
the ANDRITZ-supplied equipment has had
no problems meeting the plant’s current per-
mit limit of 0.09 lb/MMBtu. Otter Tail also
reported that the equipment met all perfor-
mance requirements during its recently com-
pleted 120-day guarantee run, and that the
plant has met all NOx and mercury emissions
requirements.
“The original budget was over $400 million
for the project,” said Rolfes. “The upgrade is
now expected to close out 21% below the bud-
get due to our procurements and engineering
work coming in below anticipated cost. Plus,
we have been able to reduce the contingency
reserves. That is good news for our customers,
owners, and shareholders.”
Opting for circulating dry scrubbing
technology turned out to be the right choice
at the right time. With its new AQCS, the
Big Stone power plant has reduced emis-
sions of NOx and SO2 by about 90% and
“Supporters of SDA technology told us called. “I can tell you that has not been the mercury by about 80%. The project allows
that we would have problems with the dual case.” the plant to be a viable power resource well
fluidized beds fighting each other and the into the future. ■
induced draft fans fighting each other and A Team Effort — Robert Puhr is principal of Ad Hoc
things would be out of sync,” Phinney re- “There has never been a worry during this Communications Inc.
POWER July 2016
Real-Time Environmental Data
Integration Improves Air Quality
Reporting
Courtesy: Wood Group
As power plant reporting requirements for emissions regulations increase in

number and complexity, yesterday’s data collection and reporting systems can
make the job harder than it needs to be.
Philip Black, PE
T
he electrical power generation sec- companies to determine the pace of necessary expanded the number of quality checks on
tor is reportedly the largest source of modifications for compliance that met their the instruments. It also augmented the focus
greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. specific business needs. They could either of QA checks beyond the emission monitor-
As such, it is the focus of the Environmen- spend money for emissions control devices ing instruments to include checks on other
tal Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Clean Power or defer installation and purchase allowances types of instruments such as flow monitors
Plan, part of the president’s larger, ambitious from companies that had already achieved providing additional data needed for calcu-
Climate Action Plan to reduce carbon emis- reductions through their capital expenditures. lating emissions.
sions. The two clearly demonstrate a trend of Regulations known as New Source Per- Existing NSPS regulations focused on
environmental regulations that place a high formance Standards (NSPS), defined under reporting periods of noncompliance and the
level of importance on the quality of the un- Title 40 in the Code of Federal Regulations steps taken to correct the underlying issues.
derlying data, not just on emissions values (CFR) Part 60, previously existed for EGUs. Part 75 increased the requirements to include
that are reported. This means increasingly This part initially governed the quality assur- the submission of all data at an hourly fre-
stringent reporting requirements and more ance (QA) checks of instrumentation used to quency, not just noncompliant periods.
data collection. measure the concentration of pollutants. The NSPS required EGUs to report times
EPA recognized that the transformation of in- when instrumentation readings could not be
Increasing Demand for Quality strument data from monitoring into a finan- considered statistically accurate. Part 75 re-
Data cial instrument suitable for allowance trading quired EGUs to report increasingly higher
The Acid Rain Program (ARP), established required a new level of detailed reporting and emissions based on the length of time it takes
in the amendments to the Clean Air Act in data QA. to return their monitoring equipment to prop-
1990, created the world’s first large-scale For this reason, the EPA created a new er working order.
emissions trading system. Designed to reset of regulations for allowance trading Due to the massive amount of data that
duce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides programs that governed the level of QA must be collected, the EPA has developed an
(NOx) from electric generating units (EGUs), checks and the required reporting level for electronic reporting platform, the Emissions
this program used a market-based, cap-and- data streams that were used in the genera- Collection and Monitoring Plan System, to
trade approach for achieving reductions. The tion of market-quality data. 40 CFR Part collect a comprehensive set of emissions as
goal of the program was to allow individual 75 incorporated many facets of Part 60 but well as supplementary information such as
|
mental staff managing the regular reporting monitoring. The stumbling block has been
1. Multiple data and access
and providing any necessary updates to man- a lack of real-time connectivity between
points. Real-time environmental data man-
agement systems (RT-EDMS) serve as the agement. multiple systems storing environmental
bridge between islands of data. Courtesy: Although large amounts of data are pro- data and the environmental departments and
Wood Group cessed and stored at each monitoring loca- management.
tion, integration capabilities are lacking at
many facilities. Commercial DAHS have Integration Advantages
existed since the beginning of the ARP and The growing awareness of the value of Part
track compliance to generate necessary fed- 75–related environmental data, combined
eral reports for the unit where they are de- with the lack of connectivity between sys-
ployed. However, due to the varying age of tems isolated on the process control net-
monitoring equipment and the different man- work, has led to the increased adoption of
ufacturers of systems that can be present in middleware solutions. Some DAHS vendors
any given facility, a lack of integration leaves are creating cloud-based portals that receive
many environmental departments gathering the information from multiple instances of
data manually into Excel spreadsheets for their monitoring tools in order to provide a
any unique corporate or state requirements. combined view of compliance. Larger utili-
This can often be the protocol at small and ties have leveraged their existing informa-
midsize facilities. Complex macros or time- tion systems to provide wider access. These
consuming manipulation can be required to custom solutions are typically based on con-
aggregate the results. After the data collec- necting data historians (such as OSISoft PI)
records of every test (completed and failed) tion and manipulation are completed and to the Enterprise Reporting Planning solution
along with facility-specific monitoring plans. passed to others, the spreadsheets are then using commercial middleware packages such
While at times optional in the past, all utili- stored on network drives or within email as Microsoft’s BizTalk.
ties are now required to submit their data archives, where they become useless for fur- In other cases, facilities with strict data se-
electronically, which is available for public ther analysis. curity requirements or those facing resource
review. There are limitations to the effectiveness constraints are considering a third option.
Part 75 has proven to be a successful of these traditional methods. As new regu- These solutions, currently being used in the
model to ensure data quality. Consequently, lations are released, it becomes even more refining and petrochemical industry, are opti-
additional, non-EPA regional market-based challenging for environmental departments mized for the long-term storage and efficient
programs such as the Regional Greenhouse to keep current in their coordination with transfer of environmental data. Referred to
Gas Initiative, Western Climate Initiative, operations. Rather than becoming more ef- as real-time environmental data management
and the California Air Resources Board refer ficient, aggregation of information from systems (RT-EDMS), these solutions act as
to Part 75 data requirements. multiple continuous emissions monitoring custom middleware that provides convenient
The scope of Part 75 is not static. As the systems using different protocols increases interfaces to multiple external systems.
number and types of parameters to report ex- with the growth in specialized emissions They also allow the processing of data
pand, the level of QA checks and documenta- monitoring systems. Due to the larger va- based on unique environmental reporting
tion expands as well. riety of systems, some facilities even find procedures with custom notification capabili-
it easier to request their own data from the ties. RT-EDMS serve as the bridge between
Problems Caused by Increased EPA or third-party sources rather than try- islands of data contained within multiple
Data Collection ing to gather significant amounts of infor- DAHS. They enable the retrieval of data by
This trend toward increased reporting pa- mation from their multiple facilities. This users from multiple locations who might oth-
rameters continues to grow, placing an limits the flexibility and use of the informa- erwise be restricted from connecting to infor-
enormous burden on facility environmental tion that is available. mation stored on the control network. They
departments. The volume of data that needs Environmental departments are not the also provide information in a format acces-
to be collected, aggregated, and reported to only groups struggling with the need for bet- sible to wider platforms (Figure 1).
satisfy requirements is staggering. Even ter transfer of information. Larger market RT-EDMS have been successfully field-
a small electric power facility (of around forces such as deregulation have also led proven in many refining and petrochemical
100 MW) requires more than one million to the necessity of establishing methods to facilities. Users of these systems have consis-
complex calculations daily from its air share many types of data that formerly never tently shown reductions in time spent com-
emissions monitoring sources within its left internal company networks. To help fa- piling custom reports by as much as 90%.
property boundaries. cilitate broader-based data sharing, many While large power generators might have
Due to the amount of high-frequency data large power generation facilities are develop- sufficient resources to develop custom solu-
that has to be reported, data acquisition and ing centralized information storage reposito- tions for complete electronic reporting, our
handling systems (DAHS) were developed ries. These systems are designed to interface research indicates that small to midsize gen-
and have been directly connected to environ- with multiple data sources, consolidate the erators (of about 1,000 MW capacity) can
mental analyzers located within the process information, store it efficiently, and then dis- especially benefit from these specialized
control network to provide the capabilities seminate it as needed in a format suited for systems in three distinct ways: enterprise
for generating electronic reports. Due to the specific audiences. awareness, anywhere access, and advanced
locations of the monitoring systems at the Unfortunately, the creation of interfaces analytics.
units throughout the facility, control room of environmental data to these systems has Expanded Awareness Across the En-
operators are typically responsible for moni- been slow, and the information remains in terprise. Environmental groups and regula-
toring real-time compliance, with environ- silos, only to be retrieved for compliance tory agencies are not the only stakeholders
POWER July 2016
information with predictive maintenance sys-
2. Dashboard convenience. A real-time environmental data management system can
tems provides another way to more efficient-
provide multiple users with clear access to data from multiple facilities. Courtesy: Wood Group
ly identify problems with equipment.
Identifying Specific Value

To determine if facilities can achieve these
benefits with an implementation of RT-ED-
MS software, it is reasonable to first answer
these questions:
■ Is there a lack of connectivity between

systems? Reporting can be instantaneous,
comprehensive, and available for wide-
spread use with an RT-EDMS. Calculating
the number of current data requests and
the time required to produce them can pro-
vide one way to monetize the benefit of an
RT-EDMS.
■ How many systems need interfacing,
and what is the age of each system? In-
formation from older and legacy equip-
ment, especially at small EGUs, can be
more challenging to gather. Investing in
integration quickly reduces the report-
ing effort.
requiring timely information. While plant among remote facilities. With better connec- ■ Are there additional reporting require-
operations staff typically have good visibility tivity comes the ability to monitor instrument ments beyond those required by Part 75
of real-time compliance information at their issues and review warnings to determine if that are difficult to meet with existing
facility, corporate environmental staff and an immediate trip is necessary or if the is- systems? Is there some equipment in the
executives don’t always have direct access. sue can be addressed during the next planned facility where exclusive Part 60 reporting
They are forced to request spreadsheets with shutdown. is still important? How difficult to un-
the information from sites. If they need data The benefits extend to management as derstand is any logic embedded in Excel
from multiple facilities, the same information well. As the trend toward mobile devices in- macros that were developed to meet those
frequently arrives in different formats. The creases, having access to software installed unique requirements? With the increasing
result is that custom reports contain the mini- only on a desktop PC significantly limits movement of talent and resources, knowl-
mal amount of data in aggregate form only. the attention that is given to environmental edge needs to be embedded in systems that
The time it takes to consolidate the informa- information. Environmental information on are easily understood by others who were
tion limits the ability to provide on-demand, mobile executive dashboards with current not the initial creators.
up-to-date data. status, drill-down capabilities and historical ■ Has there been a history of enforcement
An efficient data management and integra- summaries is important to maintain a high actions by regulatory agencies? To re-
tion solution like an RT-EDMS allows every awareness of the importance of environmen- spond to the increased scrutiny and scope
audience to access and analyze the entire da- tal performance. Having that information of regulatory audits, better reporting soft-
taset. Groups that track NOx allowances to within familiar tools further facilitates regu- ware and systems can offset future penal-
evaluate the need to buy or sell offsets can lar review. ties and improve plant safety and relations
instantly access the most recent information Ability to Leverage Advanced Ana- with the community.
without forcing a specific request (Figure 2). lytics Technology. The exposure of a con-
Allocations can be evaluated across multiple tinuous compliance historical data record As the EPA and other regulatory agencies
facilities to more easily make allowance trad- from all units across multiple facilities continue to augment their reporting require-
ing decisions. Employees in operations who to business intelligence tools opens the ments and enhance the frequency and scope
field requests for data do not have to spend possibility of exploring new techniques of their audits, data volume increases and
valuable time trying to gather information to find hidden causes of recurring prob- consistency is required. The necessity of im-
that may not be directly useful to them. Com- lems. From surveying EGUs, we found plementing a transparent, real-time, and fully
prehensive information requests from regula- that fewer than 25% of large, midsize, and integrated system becomes more imperative.
tory agencies become less time-consuming to small utilities provide any environmental In addition to the reporting agencies, this ap-
respond to. information directly to outside software proach better serves facility employees, man-
Access to Critical Information from packages. The ones that do primarily ex- agement, and the public. ■
Anywhere. With the increased amount of pose mass emissions to limited groups for —Philip Black, PE (philip.black@wood-
time many people spend away from their allowance projections. group.com) heads the environmental
computers, it becomes more important to The ability to analyze the results of every practice for Wood Group Mustang, a full-
provide information in a manner that is eas- QA/QC test on all instrumentation opens up service consulting and systems integra-
ily accessible and in a format that can easily possibilities of identifying trends before they tion firm, where he has helped develop
be consumed on smaller devices. This is es- become a problem, alerting management and the company’s ENVision environmental
pecially true for field technicians who rotate the responsible department. Combining this management and analytics software suite.
|
Weighing the Environmental

Impacts of Wind and Solar
Courtesy: Silicor Materials
Renewable generation is usually characterized as more environmentally friendly

than fossil fuels, and in many respects, that’s true. But there is a growing recog-
nition that solar and wind generation have their own impacts, and an increasing
number of manufacturers and generators are looking for ways to minimize them.
Thomas W. Overton, JD
I
celand might be about the last place you the silicon manufacturing process. Metal- toxic, explosive, and corrosive. The process
would look for innovation in solar energy, lic silicon is typically produced by reacting also produces silicon tetrachloride, another
but if so, you’d be missing something high-purity silica sand in an electric arc fur- toxic substance that must be recovered and
significant—and it concerns Iceland’s own nace, which can require as much as 120 kWh recycled. Several tons of silicon tetrachloride
energy supply, as you’ll soon see. But first, per kilogram of elemental silicon from input are produced per ton of polycrystalline sili-
some background. to final product. To the extent that electricity con, and though it can be recycled to produce
Solar energy is often hailed as the most en- is produced with fossil fuels—consider all silicon and hydrochloric acid, the process is
vironmentally benign source of electricity, and the PV panels manufactured in China, where difficult and expensive, so not all manufac-
once a solar plant is in place, this is arguably coal is the number one generation source— turers perform it.
true. But getting there has more environmental it can negate some of the carbon avoidance
impacts than you might think. And it starts with from solar energy. Reducing Toxic Byproducts
the silicon that forms the substrate of the most Second, turning raw silicon into finished Concerns about this process have been raised
common types of solar photovoltaic (PV) cells. wafers pure enough for solar cells involves a in a variety of quarters, from both support-
Silicon is one of the most common ele- number of toxic and corrosive materials. The ers and opponents of renewable energy. But
ments in Earth’s crust—about 90% of which most common method for producing poly- a San Jose–based company has developed a
is composed of silicate minerals—but pro- crystalline silicon, known as the Siemens completely different, much more environ-
ducing elemental silicon pure enough for Process, involves converting elemental sili- mentally friendly method of producing solar
solar PV cells is no simple matter. For one con into gaseous form and then growing the silicon that has the added benefit of costing
thing, it requires an enormous amount of silicon crystals through chemical vapor de- half as much as traditional processes and us-
electricity—roughly half of the energy re- position. This process requires hydrochloric ing one-third the energy.
quired to produce a PV cell is consumed in acid, and the resulting gas, trichlorosilane, is Silicor Materials is planning a facility in
POWER July 2016
and commercial business development, the
1. Clean and clear. Silicor Materials 2. Avian impact. This red kite was killed
factory is set to break ground in Grundar-
has developed a manufacturing process for by a wind turbine blade at the Montes del
tangi, Iceland, this fall and will have a capac- Cierzo wind farm in Spain. Courtesy: Gurelur
polycrystalline silicon that uses substan-
tially less energy with no toxic byproducts ity of 19,000 metric tons of solar silicon (all
by partnering with aluminum smelters. The of which has been committed to customers)
company is preparing to build a large factory when it reaches full output in 2019. In ad-
in Iceland that will begin operations in 2018. dition to the environmentally friendly manu-
Shown here are finished ingots of silicon. facturing process, its location in Iceland will
Courtesy: Silicor Materials allow it to source 100% of its electricity from
renewable energy.
Raising Awareness
But solar PV cells are more than just silicon.
The PV manufacturing process involves a
range of toxic substances such as hydroflu- pean Union has an EPR scheme that funds
oric acid, and it produces substantial waste- disposal costs for PV panels, no such scheme
water and solid waste streams. Treating and exists in the U.S. However, the SVTC reports
recycling that waste costs money, and there that a number of panel manufacturers have
have been examples of a few PV manufactur- asked the Solar Energy Industries Associa-
ers cutting corners by dumping wastewater tion to work on this issue.
rather than treating it. In one widely reported
incident, protests over dumping outside a Birds and Bats and Turbines,
Chinese manufacturer’s plant in 2011 turned Oh My
violent and the company later faced legal ac- Unlike solar PV cells, wind turbine manu-
tion over it. facturing is relatively benign, or at least little
Concerns about these issues led the different in impact from traditional turbine
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), a generators, since many of the same compo-
nonprofit organization that tracks environ- nents are used. Wind turbines using permanent
mental impacts in the tech industry, to begin magnets require rare earth elements such as
publishing an annual scorecard ranking PV neodymium, the extraction of which can have
manufacturers on the transparency and sus- serious environmental consequences because
tainability of their manufacturing processes. of the acids used in refining and the frequent
Iceland to make it happen. Why Iceland? The To achieve a positive score, the manufacturer occurrence of uranium and thorium in the
island’s abundance of cheap hydroelectric needs to support PV panel recycling, clear- ores. However, the percentage of neodymium
and geothermal power has made it a mecca ly report emissions across its supply chain, going to wind turbine manufacturing is a small
for metals processing despite its remote lo- make efforts to reduce module toxicity and component of worldwide demand for this ele-
cation—the tiny nation in fact ranks 11th use of heavy metals, and keep in place mod- ment, which is used in a wide variety of con-
worldwide in production of aluminum. And ern health and safety standards for its work- sumer products as well as electric vehicles.
it’s the aluminum smelting process that Sili- ers, among other criteria. Much more controversial has been the is-
cor uses to produce its silicon. Not surprisingly, scores since the SVTC sue of bird mortality at operating wind farms
Silicor Chairman and CEO Terry Jester began the scorecard in 2010 have fluctu- (Figure 2). Though the scope of the impact
explained the method to POWER. Rather ated widely given the substantial number of has been heavily studied, the reported ranges
than using gaseous silicon, Silicor’s method mergers, bankruptcies, and new companies are quite large. Estimates of bird mortality in
partners with the island’s aluminum smelters entering the field. And, since the scorecard peer-reviewed studies vary from wind farm
to extract silicon from the aluminum smelt- relies on self-reported data, manufacturers to wind farm, and range from 0 (that is, no fa-
ing process, where silicon is viewed as an that did not participate in the survey tend to talities were found) to as many as 10 or more
impurity. Metallurgical-grade silicon is dis- have low scores. Still, the scorecard shows birds killed per turbine per year. Nationwide,
solved into an aluminum smelt, and the sili- that at least some manufacturers are making a 2013 study reviewing published data con-
con will crystalize out before the aluminum substantial efforts to reduce the impacts of cluded that 573,000 birds and 888,000 bats
solidifies as the mixture is cooled (shown in their manufacturing processes. Three major were killed each year at U.S. wind farms in
the header photo). The crystallized silicon companies—SunPower, SolarWorld, and 2012, while another study in 2014 estimated
flakes still contain a coating of aluminum, Trina—all achieved scores above 90 on the bird deaths at 140,000 to 328,000.
but this is then removed using hydrochloric 2015 scorecard (see http://bit.ly/1PAHV1O It is worth noting that generalized totals do
acid. Unlike traditional silicon production, for the full list). not give an accurate picture of the true im-
however, this process produces polyalumi- Other efforts to reduce solar PV impacts pact of bird mortality for a variety of reasons.
num chloride, a nontoxic compound that is include an embrace of extended producer re- Deaths in different regions and over different
used in water purification, among other pro- sponsibility (EPR). EPR is a term used for the periods of the year have different effects on
cesses. The remaining silicon flakes are then idea that the environmental costs of a product the environment. Mortality rates for different
re-melted, and what little aluminum remains throughout its life cycle should be reflected species are not clear, even though deaths of
forms a thin layer on top of the silicon ingot in its market price, typically with some sort different species also have different impacts.
that can easily be removed (Figure 1). of surcharge. (If you bought a computer re- For example, the loss of 10,000 sparrows will
According to Michael Russo, Silicor’s cently, you may have seen such a fee added have far less effect on the ecosystem than the
executive vice president of sales, marketing, on to the purchase price.) While the Euro- loss of 10,000 bald eagles.
|
July 2016 POWER www.powermag.com
www.powermag.com 41
strobe lights that fire simultaneously rather
3. Double trouble. The San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm north of Palm Springs, Calif., was
than continuous lighting. (This is to avoid at-
developed beginning in the 1980s. Its closely placed turbines (some with lattice-frame towers) and
above ground transmission lines can pose multiple threats to birds. Courtesy: Gail Reitenbach tracting insects that in turn attract birds and
bats. Several mass mortality events at wind
farms have been linked to the use of high-
intensity lighting.) Measures should also
be taken to avoid creating potential habitats
for prey animals such as rabbits and ground
squirrels, as these will attract raptors. During
operation, avian mortality should be moni-
tored and recorded, and in areas where sig-
nificant mortality is found, further mitigation
efforts should be explored.
One mitigation measure that has been
identified is increasing blade cut-in speed,
that is, raising the minimum wind speed at
which the turbine begins operating. Many
birds and bats are more active during periods
of low wind, and keeping turbines motionless
or at low speed in these conditions has been
shown to reduce mortality.
The effectiveness of deterrent devices
such as those that generate ultrasonic noise
is unclear. Some studies have shown reduced
Data suggest that migratory birds tend to parity exists because most of the turbines at bat mortality, but the data are not extensive.
suffer the greatest mortality from wind tur- Altamont were constructed before bird mor- Accordingly, the Department of Energy is
bines, accounting for around 75% of all fa- tality was an issue considered during wind currently funding several studies, including
talities, according to several studies. Some farm development and little thought was one by GE, of deterrent devices to determine
authors have suggested that deaths for these given to reducing risks. Studies have shown whether they could be effective in reducing
species are underreported because these birds that wind farm location can have a dramatic bat mortality.
tend to be small and their carcasses are more effect on avian mortality, with poorly sited Other approaches include using radar to
easily scavenged and thus less likely to be projects killing far more birds than ones built detect approaching birds and automatically
found during site studies. However, because with more responsible planning. shutting down or slowing turbines, but the
these species also represent some of the Older wind farms tend to be higher density effectiveness of this method is also not yet
largest bird populations, many studies have than newer projects, grouping turbines much known.
concluded that these deaths are ecologically more closely, which can increase avian risk. Meanwhile, the federal government is
insignificant, especially when viewed in con- Such farms are also more likely to have lat- struggling with how to regulate avian mortal-
text with deaths suffered by collisions with tice-frame towers instead of the monopoles ity at wind farms, since many avian species
power lines, buildings, and other structures, used by modern turbines, as well as above- killed by wind turbines—such as bald and
and predation by domestic cats. ground transmission lines (Figure 3), both of golden eagles—are protected by federal law,
which are known to attract birds. and causing such deaths is normally cause
On Wings of Eagles for prosecution. Duke Energy was fined $1
Though raptors (eagles, hawks, and related Adjust Cut-In Speed to Cut million in 2013 and PacificCorp was fined
species) make up a small portion of the to- Mortality $2.5 million in 2014, both for eagle deaths
tal bird fatalities (the 2013 study mentioned Though the data are not extensive, there in Wyoming, but enforcement actions have
above estimated 83,000 per year), these is growing evidence that proper planning otherwise been rare. (Duke has since taken
deaths are much more significant because and design can substantially reduce avian steps to reduce avian and bat mortality at its
these birds are typically apex predators and mortality. A 2010 study from the U.S. Fish 16 wind farms, such as slowing down blades
their population has a direct effect on a wide and Wildlife Service (FWS) makes a num- in low wind.)
variety of other species. Thus, it is not sur- ber of recommendations (see http://1.usa. In 2013 the FWS issued a rule allowing
prising that wind turbine raptor deaths have gov/1OKpKgd). Among these are assess- wind farm owners to apply for 30-year per-
garnered most of the attention. ing avian populations in the area during the mits to kill limited numbers of eagles (tech-
There is evidence that raptors are attracted planning process, with particular attention nically referred to as “incidental take”), a
to wind turbines as nesting sites, and they are to nesting sites, migration routes/stopovers, regulation that was successfully challenged
likely more vulnerable to blade impact be- and the potential for fragmenting existing in court by several conservation organiza-
cause of their habits of staying aloft longer habitats. Where such factors exist, other sites tions. In May 2016, the FWS proposed a new
and floating on thermal patterns while hunt- should be considered. As specific sites are rule that would require active monitoring
ing for prey. One oft-cited study estimated as identified, more detailed studies of potential and mitigation of avian mortality, with the
many as 100 or more raptors being killed at impacts are recommended, particularly of permits being reviewed every five years. The
the Altamont Pass Wind Farm in California species behavior in the area. proposed rule is open for comment through
every year, though this high level of mortality When building the farm, the study rec- July 5. ■
has not been seen at other wind farms. ommends placing turbines outside of areas —Thomas W. Overton, JD, is a POWER
Some studies have suggested that this dis- identified as crossing routes and using only associate editor.
POWER July 2016
Avoiding Wildlife Impacts from
Renewable Energy in Europe
Courtesy: Ad Meskens/Wikimedia Commons
Europe has been in the forefront of renewable energy development, and

though the scientific research on wildlife impacts is limited, European envi-
ronmentalists and developers are beginning to create baseline frameworks
and guidelines. Developers around the world can learn from their experience.
Lee Buchsbaum
A
s more renewable energy systems come renewables are better for the environment mals, depend heavily on sonar-like systems
online, providers hope to both make than fossil-fueled power plants, the enduring to navigate, and those systems are greatly
money and protect the environment struggle between economics and stewardship affected by the sounds created during un-
simultaneously. However, some environmen- is still part of the equation. dersea energy development and construc-
tal scientists and conservationists are sound- For maximum output and profitability, tion. In much the same way that dolphins,
ing alarm bells over impacts that onshore and wind farms are sited in open, exposed areas porpoises, and whales have been affected by
offshore wind farms and new wave and tidal where there are higher-than-average wind undersea oil exploration, they are getting hit
energy systems may have on avian and marine speeds. This means that they are frequently again as both offshore wind, tidal, and other
wildlife—in particular, birds, bats, whales, proposed in upland and coastal areas, poten- marine renewable energy systems expand
dolphins, and other sea mammals. tially affecting important habitats for breed- (see sidebar).
There is empirical evidence that onshore ing, wintering, and migrating birds. In the But precisely because most of these ener-
wind production has negative impacts on same way turbines utilize the kinetic energy gy systems are new, the extent of their actual
birds and bats (see the article “Weighing the of the wind, birds often use that wind as their impacts is still relatively unknown. Without
Environmental Impacts of Wind and Solar” propellant or even as “superhighways.” The much of an established body of peer-re-
in this issue). But a bigger unknown is how degree to which wind farms can safely co- viewed scientific research, environmentalists
increasing numbers of offshore wind devel- exist with avian life is still an unknown, es- and developers are just now creating baseline
opments will affect marine as well as bird pecially as ever-larger wind turbines on- and study frameworks and guidelines for future
populations. Europe leads the world in off- offshore are deployed. projects. Given Europe’s longer history with
shore wind development, and plans are un- Additionally, as humans keep develop- renewable rollouts, a large portion of the pub-
der way to continue to ramp up. Including ing coastal, tidal, and deep ocean regions, lished research emanates from there. What
offshore production, Europe’s installed wind the noises created during exploration and are some lessons that have been learned, and
capacity could surpass 200 GW by 2020. In- development processes become highly am- what can renewable energy providers else-
deed, worldwide, wind energy of all forms plified in the undersea environment. Many where do to avoid the worst mistakes of their
is, well, blowing up. Though unquestionably species of marine life, particularly mam- pioneering predecessors?
|
Tidal Power Draws Concern

Coming on strong are a variety of newly de-
1. The tide is rising. The 1.2-MW SeaGen tidal power system in Strangford Lough in
ployed marine renewable energy systems,
Northern Ireland, which began operations in 2008, was the world’s first commercial-scale,
or MRE technologies (Figure 1). Accord- grid-connected tidal stream turbine. Courtesy: Siemens
ing to “Environmental Effects of Marine
Renewable Energy Development Around
the World,” a report from Annex IV—a col-
laborative initiative of the Ocean Energy
Systems under the International Energy
Agency Technology Network (see http://
tethys.pnnl.gov/publications/state-of-the-
science-2016)—the world’s oceans have
the current technical potential to produce
9,100,000 GWh annually using established
MRE technologies for tidal, wave, and
ocean current extraction.
One of the main advantages of MREs
compared to wind and solar is that their
electrical output is more constant. With a
greater potential for reliability, there are
even greater profits to be made once the
system is operational.
Scotland, with its rocky, beautiful shore-
lines, fierce coastal winds, and huge bird
populations, is both a vast potential source Because tidal energy is both so new The 2016 report summarizes research
of tidal and wind energy and a significant and potentially disruptive to marine life, findings regarding the collision of marine
venue for avian conflict. Scotland is work- a group of researchers, environmentalists, animals with undersea turbines. Other ar-
ing with both Ireland and Northern Ireland and stakeholders formed Annex IV to study eas of study were the effects of underwater
to construct one of the world’s first large- the environmental effects of marine renew- noise from turbines and electromagnetic
scale marine renewable energy systems. able energy development. By sharing data fields from undersea cables used to carry
The Irish-Scottish Links on Energy Study and synthesizing results through its State power. The consensus is that deployments
project is set to reach 6.2 GW by 2020. The of the Science reports, Annex IV hopes to composed of single units are not expected
project, known as ISLES, will use all three reduce risk for marine energy technologies, to harm marine life. The report also looks
of the major marine renewable energy avoid duplication of research and monitor- at the health of seafloor habitats and
sources—offshore wind, wave, and tidal— ing efforts, promote sustainable develop- reefs, changes in sea flow patterns around
and will provide much-needed data on the ment of MRE technologies, and ensure that turbines, and biodiversity of marine eco-
technology and its effects on the environ- accurate and up-to-date information is systems. In addition, the report includes
ment (see www.islesproject.eu). Dozens of available to regulators, industry members, four case studies on the long permitting
different types of tidal energy prototypes and scientists worldwide. (The comprehen- and consenting process that the first gen-
have been tested throughout the past de- sive report, however, sticks to MREs and eration of MRE devices has encountered,
cade by Scotland’s European Marine Energy does not address the effects of offshore and it suggests areas for future marine en-
Centre. wind.) ergy monitoring and research.
Wind Turbines Can Be Bird and Bat rate of between three to five individuals per generation turbines sited with appropriate
Killers MW per year, while bat collisions at some planning generally pose lower risks. How-
As one might expect, most of the impacts sites are as common as 30 per MW per year. ever, comparisons between sites are difficult
of wind infrastructure are not due to direct However, the authors of a December 2014 because different sites have distinct avian
clearing of land or habitat loss but to bird and European Commission publication entitled populations, and species composition and
bat collisions. Birds can be killed not only “Science for Environment Policy Future behavior can affect the risks. In other words,
from collisions with rotors but also by col- Brief: Wind & Solar Energy and Nature Con- planners and site developers have to be care-
liding with towers, nacelles, and associated servation” (see http://bit.ly/1DkTGFl), cau- ful not to over-generalize. Each site requires
structures such as guy cables, power lines, tion that the number of bird deaths arising its own specific analysis.
and meteorological masts. Estimates of bird from turbine collisions overall “represents a
and bat collisions vary from site to site, de- tiny fraction of the total bird deaths caused by Better Site Selection Is Key
pending on the location, the technology used, humans: pet cats, windows and transmission The consensus among European experts is
and the abundance of birds locally. Some lines kill many more.” that the best solution for energy developers as
studies suggest that birds may be killed at a Recent research suggests that newer- they seek to avoid wildlife impacts is likely
POWER July 2016
improved site selection, as the international
2. Boom times. Erecting offshore wind turbines can create substantial undersea noise
avian conservation group BirdLife reported during the construction of foundations and driving of pilings, noise that can have harmful effects
in one of its recent studies, “Meeting Eu- on marine life. Proper mitigation efforts, such as air-bubble curtails, may be able to reduce those
rope’s Renewable Energy Targets in Harmo- impacts. Courtesy: RWE Innogy
ny With Nature” (see http://bit.ly/1Y3FDjQ).
According to the BirdLife report, a use-
ful approach is mapping wind resources
(such as speeds and patterns) together with
maps of environmentally sensitive zones,
such as migration corridors and protected
wildlife areas. Doing so can create a prac-
tical tool for development decisions based
on the most extensive and up-to-date data.
These can also be useful for policy making
and planning.
Robust and objective baseline studies
are also necessary as part of this process to
minimize negative effects on birds, other
wildlife, and their habitats. They also support
post-construction monitoring at completed
wind farms where environmental concerns
exist. BirdLife and the European Commis-
sion studies state that, where at all possible,
energy providers should not develop in areas
with:
■ “High densities of wintering or migratory

waterfowl and waders, where important
habitats might be affected by disturbance,
or where there is potential for significant
collision mortality.”
■ “[A] high level of raptor activity, especial- Another suggestion BirdLife has is that manufacturer’s speed. “This may be because
ly core areas of individual breeding ranges wind producers halt turbine operations “dur- bats are more active at lower wind speeds”
and in cases where local topography fo- ing peak periods of activity or during mi- since the insects they feed on do not fly in
cuses flight activity, which would cause a gration,” even though that means taking a high winds.
large number of flights to pass through the potential hit on income.
wind farm.” After the turbines have been sited, among Other Potential Impacts of Off-
■ “Breeding, wintering or migrat- the best solutions to avoid accidental avian shore Wind Farms
ing populations of less abundant spe- deaths is the installation and usage of bird- Because of its location in marine environ-
cies, particularly those of conservation and bat-sensitive radar systems. Several ments, offshore wind development brings
concern, which may be sensitive to international manufacturers now provide with it another set of environmental impacts.
increased mortality as a result of colli- systems with supporting software that can Turbine foundation construction and under-
sion or more subtle effects on survival be used to scan the sky for large groups of sea cable installations, as well as other steps
and productivity due to displacement.” birds and bats and automatically shut down in the construction of high-capacity wind
turbines before flocks pass through genera- farms, can generate high levels of noise
When developers build their turbines, tion areas. For older wind farms that have (Figure 2). The impact of noise on marine
BirdLife and the European Commission sug- been sited along migratory routes, this could mammals can be divided into three levels:
gest they: prevent bird formations from “sleep-flying” those that cause fatal injury; those that cause
directly into harm’s way. non-fatal injury such as deafness and other
■ “Group turbines to avoid alignment per- Additional operational adjustments such auditory damage such as “temporary thresh-
pendicular to main flight paths and to pro- as changing the cut-in speed or the angle of old shift”; and those that cause behavioral
vide corridors between clusters, aligned blades relative to the wind may also reduce change (such as avoidance and cessation of
with main flight trajectories, within large collisions. However, somewhat counterin- feeding).
wind farms.” tuitively, for birds with poor maneuverabil- The focus should not solely be on avoiding
■ “Where possible, developers should install ity such as griffon vultures, it may be that deaths, however. “A porpoise is doomed to
transmission cables underground (subject slower rotation speeds are more problem- die if its hearing is shattered,” Kim Detloff, a
to habitat sensitivities and in accordance atic because the associated low wind speed marine expert at German nature conservation
with existing best practice guidelines for makes avoidance of the turbine blades more group NABU told Renewable Energy World
underground cable installation).” difficult. On the other hand, according to in a 2012 story. In Germany, comprehensive
■ “Developers should mark overhead cables the European Commission report, data from noise control measures must be used dur-
using deflectors and avoid their use over several studies suggest that bat collisions ing the construction phase, especially when
areas of high bird concentrations, espe- are halved when turbine cut-in speed is in- foundation structures are driven into the sea-
cially for species vulnerable to collision.” creased by 1.5 meters per second above the floor. This is necessary to protect porpoises,
|
which are sensitive to noise and protected by tion groups complained about impacts on and avian life that could be impacted by the
animal conservation laws, as well as other porpoises. RWE’s Nordsee Ost wind farm, development. Extensive boat and aerial sur-
marine mammals. Regulators “must sanc- which has a capacity of approximately 295 veys collected two years’ worth of data on
tion developers if they repeatedly violate the MW, is one of the largest commercial wind bird activity offshore.
noise limit,” said Detloff. farm projects off the German coast. A total “We have also completed one year of ma-
While data demonstrate that construc- of 48 Senvion wind turbines, each with a ca- rine mammal surveys using a combination of
tion will have effects on mammals and pacity of 6 MW, were initially installed. Cur- survey techniques,” RWE said in a statement.
fish, which can detect pile-driving noises rently the company is jointly developing the “We have also collected over 10,000 hours of
over considerable distances, there are very next phase, the Nordsee One project. With 54 continuous acoustic monitoring for marine
few equivalent data available for birds. more wind turbines, Nordsee One will have mammals from static moorings. In addition,
Adequate avian ecological survey data is an overall capacity of 332 MW. we have completed surveys for fish and other
generally still unavailable for most off- Recent news releases from RWE state marine species which live on, or within, the
shore areas, according to BirdLife. In order that the foundations for Nordsee One’s wind seabed.” The survey data will be used in con-
to remedy this, they recommend, prior to turbines and the substation were recently junction with other existing data to establish
development, year-round baseline data col- completed. The installation of the facility’s the ecology of the area.
lection over a minimum of two years for all main submarine cable is scheduled to begin No doubt, as development proceeds, many
affected bird species to cover breeding and in June. The transformer substation at sea is more lessons will be learned as new regula-
non-breeding distributions. also slated to be installed during the summer. tions are phased in. Now as the U.S. begins
Finally, the wind turbines are due to be in- development of its first large offshore wind
Mitigating Undersea Noise stalled in early 2017, and the wind farm will farm, operators in conjunction with their
Impacts then go into operation next year. Dutch partners have announced their intent
Environmental best practices often trail de- According to other published reports, dur- to draw on lessons learned throughout the
velopment, only evolving as real impacts are ing the initial construction phase, RWE used North Sea.
actually felt. Beginning several years ago, a large perforated hose to produce a curtain —Lee Buchsbaum (www.lmbphotography.
as German energy provider RWE AG began of air bubbles around each of the first 48 tur- com), a former editor and contributor to
construction of its massive Nordsee offshore bine foundations at Nordsee Ost. RWE has Coal Age, Mining, and EnergyBiz, has
wind farm complex, the firm shifted to using also undertaken many onshore and offshore covered coal and other industrial subjects
technologies that reduced noise from driv- ecological surveys to identify the location of for nearly 20 years and is a seasoned
ing turbines into the seabed after conserva- habitats and species of all the affected marine industrial photographer.
April 10–13, 2017

McCormick Center West
Chicago, IL
The ELECTRIC POWER committee has issued an industry-wide call for participation for the 19th Annual
ELECTRIC POWER Conference + Exhibition, which will be held April 10-13, 2017 in Chicago, IL.
The conference committee is looking for case studies showcasing technologies, improvements, techniques and
experiences that provide solutions and improve operations for the power plant of tomorrow.
Do you have experience and insight to share on these topics?
u Solutions and lessons learned to increase power plant performance and profitability
u New and proven solutions to meet environmental compliance guidelines
u Case studies on technology solutions or advancements
u Power plant resiliency—From performance management to cyber security and more
u Combined Heat & Power—Best practices shared
u Grid stability and integration experience or insights
If “YES” popped into your head while reading this list, we want
to hear from you!
Deadline for submission is August 12, 2016—go online
today and submit your abstract for consideration!
www.electricpowerexpo.com
POWER July 2016
THE INSTITUTE OF
CLEAN AIR COMPANIES:
Helping You Advance in the Industry
Did you know the Institute of Clean Air Companies (ICAC)

is comprised of more than 65 member companies? ICAC’s mission is to be the voice of the
Representing suppliers of air pollution monitoring and stationary source air pollution control
control systems, equipment, and services for stationary and monitoring industry.
sources, joining ICAC means access to top resources around
the world to help your company thrive in today’s markets.
The ICAC is often the go-to for agencies to obtain key
As a membership organization, ICAC provides its members information about air pollution control technology. The
with the tools to stay up-to-date on the latest industry news ICAC places a high value on: providing credible, high-quality,
and provides forums for developing technology-focused reliable information to government entities and relevant
white papers, buying guides, and rule comments. industry parties; encouraging policies that are open to
innovation and new technology and treating all stakeholders
ICAC focuses on collaboration, routinely working with equally and with respect. By providing scienti c technical
government, business, public, and private groups to information relevant to exible clean air policies based on
ensure the industry has an active voice and that its practical, achievable and measurable emissions limitations,
products and technologies are properly represented and members will have the latest data right at their ngertips.
understood. By hearing all positions regarding air quality
concerns, ICAC members successfully apply technology
As an ICAC member, MKS gained access to many
to achieve economical technology design, development,
of the EPA personnel directly responsible for
and deployment to address the air quality challenges we
writing and enforcing regulations and standards
face today. Members also work to address the impacts of
air quality technology on the balance of plant concerns, for CEM technologies.
including E luent Limitation Guidelines (ELG).
ICAC members are committed to the domestic and
Industries ICAC serves:
international growth of the energy industry. With up-to-
• Emissions control technologies: VOC, SO2, date information on market opportunities around the globe
NOx, PM, Hg, GHG, and air toxics and a number of networking opportunities throughout the
• Emissions measurement technologies: year, ICAC members have access to the key information and
CEMS, Portables, DAHS, etc. contacts they need to thrive in today’s market. Members
• Leading manufacturers of industry equipment bene t from networking activities such as a membership
meeting each spring, the annual Clean Air Summit,
• Providers of related advisory and
legislative conferences, numerous division and committee
implementation service
meetings, conference calls and webinars, EPA roundtable
ICAC members-only resources and opportunities: meetings, state technical forums, and more.
• An engaged member community
• The ICAC Annual Business Meeting
ADA-ES attributes much of its success to its
• EPA Roundtables and other Federal and
relationships with di erent ICAC member
State agency meetings companies of varying sizes and a wide range
• Legislative Conferences of expertise.
• Industry networking events
• Access to an industry leading e-newsletter *A special thank you to POWER Magazine for their
collaborative e orts
• The Annual ICAC Market Study
• Participation in Division meetings and Committees
• Technical Webinars
HIGH REACTIVITY HYDRATED LIME

for DRY SORBENT INJECTION
Mississippi Lime Company offers two advanced hydrated lime
solutions speciically engineered for DSI Systems:
High Reactivity Hydrate (SO3 and HCl)
HRH-64 (SO2 and HCI)
These sorbents provide proven advantages to the end user:

High level removal of SO3, HCI, and SO2
Operational beneits
Reduced annual sorbent costs
Ash stability
Contact us at [email protected] to learn more.

SPECIAL
Dürr
ADVERTISING
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Making Air Pollution
Control Profitable
Removing acids from boiler lue gas allows users the opportunity • Changing operation mode of existing equipment to partial load,
to proit from the need to operate an air pollution control system. thereby helping to reduce consumption igures and enhance
eiciencies
While traditionally applied technologies are well known,
• Meeting additional emission requirements by incremental
such as SCR NOx reduction, the secret lies in Dürr’s low-CAPEX
SCR active Catalytic Hot Gas Filter in combination with the addition of functionality, like SCR NOx reduction, in a side
cost-efective Furnace Sorbent Injection system engineered by stream arrangement without putting power production at risk
ClearChem Development. Acid-free lue gas liberates steam for • Being upgradeable for future requirements thanks to modular
electricity generation while intelligent utilization of the latent heat design
of vaporization takes over the heating of the boiler feed water. As • Improving all over sulfur reduction while at the same time
a major result the boiler heat rate is improved, contributing to the allowing for condensing operation
boiler’s eiciency as well as necessary BSER achievements of the While CAPEX requirements for a side stream arrangement can
Clean Power Plan, like CO2 reduction. be even further reduced, necessary footprint is optimized for the
Intelligent integration of the Dürr and ClearChem technology required achievement. “We are proud to present a technology that
in a side stream arrangement of existing air pollution control helps our customers in a cost efective way to address greenhouse
equipment, as shown in the above ESP example, can furthermore gas emission reduction for existing coal ired boilers, while for the
irst time ofering a return on investment. his is an important step
help to improve the overall performance by:
towards useful lifetime extension for our customer’s assets,” says Mrs.
Wiebke Hagendorf-Schroter, VP of Dürr Clean Technology Systems.
Dürr Systems, Inc.

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Phone +1 248-450-2000
Email [email protected]
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28129
SPECIAL
W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc.
ADVERTISING
SECTION
Simple, Effective Compliance with

Regulatory Requirements for Mercury
mercury and is insensitive to fuel or process changes. Unlike with
many activated carbon sorbents, the presence of SO3 does not inhibit
mercury capture by the SPC. Since there are no injected sorbents or
chemicals, there is no concern over ly ash contamination, halogen-
induced corrosion, or wastewater treatment complications. he
catalyst in the SPC converts SO2 to sulfuric acid which is neutralized
in the scrubber.
he GMCS can serve as a barrier to mercury re-emissions from
a wet lue gas desulfurization system (wFGD), eliminating the need
for re-emissions additives.
Minimal Solid Waste Generation

When the modules have reached end of life, the SPC material
can be removed from the metal frames for disposal. he quantity of
SPC material that needs to be disposed is typically several orders of
magnitude less than the quantity of injected sorbents resulting in
lower disposal costs.
he GORE™ Mercury Control System (GMCS) is an innovative

solution that eliminates many of the undesirable complications and Installation in Wet Scrubber
high operating costs associated with traditional mercury control
systems. It can be a viable alternative, replacement, or complement
to an existing system, providing decreased operating costs,
increased compliance margin, and simpliied plant operation.
he GMCS is a unique ixed sorbent system for capturing
elemental and oxidized gas phase mercury from industrial lue gas.
he modules are designed with an open channel structure which
provides extremely low pressure drop avoiding the need for an
additional booster fan (typical installation only adds 1 to 2 inches
of water dP). Operation is passive; the modules will continuously
capture mercury for many years without requiring any adjustment,
regeneration, or replacement. hey also provide a signiicant SO2
removal co-beneit, which may be useful for meeting future SO2
regulations. Both mercury and SO2 are removed without requiring
any injection of sorbents or chemicals, and as a result, the operating
cost of the system is very low.
The Science Behind the Solution GORE™ Mercury Control Systems are currently in operation in
At the heart of the technology is an innovative, luoropolymer 2000 MW in the coal-ired power industry, and 15 sewage sludge
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he sorbent in this material eiciently captures gas-phase plant including costs and projected cost savings.
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Email: [email protected]
gore.com/mercury
CIRCLE 15 ON READER SERVICE CARD 28269
PRB COAL
PRB Coal Users’ Group Plant of
the Year: Ameren’s Rush Island
Energy Center
Courtesy: Rush Island Energy Center, Ameren Corp.
Rush Island Energy Center has successfully fired Powder River Basin (PRB) coal
for two decades, as proven by the plant’s excellent performance stats,
dedication to minimizing its environmental footprint, and sterling safety
record. The PRB Coal Users’ Group top award recognizes the plant staff’s
long-term dedication to continuously improving its safe handling and ef-
ficient combustion of PRB coal.
Dr. Robert Peltier, PE
“
Without continual growth and progress, of sulfur and is the lowest $/Btu fuel). The recently upgraded with Alstom rotors.
such words as improvement, achieve- plant has burned 100% PRB coal since The Powder River Coal Users’ Group
ment, and success have no meaning,” 1996. Today, PRB coal is further refined on (PRBCUG) Board of Directors toured RIEC
Benjamin Franklin once said. Franklin, in- site with the addition of proprietary chemi- in mid-December 2015 to learn first-hand
ventor and statesman, knew the value of im- cals that “refine” the coal in order to reduce about the plant’s progress toward implement-
proving electricity systems and in the process NOx production at a cost of about $4 million ing best practices for managing risk, ensuring
of his electricity experiments coined terms per year. RIEC’s two units routinely score a safe working environment, efficient combus-
such as “battery,” “charge,” “condenser,” and first and second nationally for the lowest tion, and PRB coal handling. Board members
“armature,” among many others. Franklin NOx produced by units without selective shared their observations with POWER, many
began with an idea that would benefit so- catalytic reduction (SCR). of which are included in this article. The com-
ciety (he never patented an invention) and RIEC is located about 45 miles south of St. mon denominator reported by each member of
then slowly perfected the product. The best- Louis, Mo., on a 500-acre site, on the west side the review team was the plant’s commitment
performing power plants, such as Ameren’s of the Mississippi River. Each unit has a gross to a process of continuous improvement in all
Rush Island Energy Center (RIEC), reap the generating capacity of approximately 645 areas of plant operations.
rewards of following Franklin’s example. MW. The two units began commercial service Excellence in plant operations is a pro-
In May, RIEC celebrated 40 years of pro- in 1976 and 1977 and represent the last coal cess, not an end state, although Plant of the
viding reliable, safe, and low-cost power to plants constructed for the Ameren Missouri Year honors certainly represent a significant
its Missouri customers. Over 20 years ago, generating fleet. The tangentially fired boilers milestone in the life of the plant (see side-
RIEC began making the switch to Pow- were originally designed to burn high-sulfur bar). The board noted three important areas
der River Basin (PRB) coal because of the Illinois coal (11,600 Btu/lb versus 8,400 Btu/ where the plant distinguishes itself among its
coal’s environmental and economic advan- lb for PRB coal). The plant produces electric- peers: environmental performance, plant op-
tages (the coal contains very low amounts ity with two Westinghouse turbine-generators, erations, and a culture of safety.
POWER July 2016
PRB COAL
Environmental Excellence
NOx emissions are managed by overfired air PRBCUG Recognizes Its 2016 Plant of the Year
and a Griffin neural net combustion optimiza-
tion system. The permit limit for NOx emis- The annual Powder River Basin Coal Users’ Selections are made by the group’s
sions is 0.40 lb/MMBtu, although actual Group (PRBCUG) meeting was held in April in board of directors, with input from mem-
average annual NOx emissions have remained conjunction with the 2016 ELECTRIC POWER bers. PRBCUG membership comprises us-
below 0.10 lb/MMBtu over the past decade, Conference & Exhibition in New Orleans, La. ers of PRB coals as well as prospective
without an SCR. For 2015, NOx emissions av- This year the PRBCUG recognized the Rush consumers (generating companies or
eraged 0.081 lb/MMBtu. Particulates are cap- Island Energy Center as its Plant of the Year industrial energy consumers). Associate
tured with an electrostatic precipitator on each
for the plant’s innovation and implementa- members from companies supplying coal,
unit (there is no baghouse).
tion of “best practices and best available equipment, or services also participate in
The plant’s sulfur emissions rely on the
efficient burning of the ultra-low-sulfur PRB technologies” for burning PRB coal. Plant the selection process. Visit www.prbcoals.
compliance coal. Permitted SO2 emissions are of the Year recipients are inducted into the com for more information about the group
2.3 lb/MMBtu, although the plant’s average group’s Power Plant Hall of Fame. and its Plant of the Year selection process.
annual emissions have tracked under 0.75 lb/
MMBtu for the past 20 years, dipping to be- 1. Black gold. The Rush Island Energy Center consumes about 5.5 million tons of very low
low 0.5 lb/million Btu in 2014 as combustion sulfur Powder River Basin coal each year. The coal pile holds about 1.1 million tons of fuel—
systems were continuously optimized. enough for 60 to 65 days of operation. Courtesy: Rush Island Energy Center
Mercury emissions are reduced by in-
jecting activated carbon upstream of the air
heaters and a mercury continuous emissions
monitoring system analyzes the stack gas.
The plant closely manages opacity exceed-
ances and had only 46 six-minute exceed-
ances in 2014.
The plant operates today with a capacity
factor over 80% and an equivalent availabil-
ity just short of 90%.
Impeccable Plant Operations

RIEC’s two units consume about 5.5 million
tons of PRB coal each year, which represents
about one 145-car unit train every day. Coal
is sourced from Peabody Energy’s North An-
telope Rochelle, Seam “C,” located in Wyo-
ming. A loop track around the storage area
reduces the coal train unloading cycle time.
The plant stores about 1.1 million tons
of coal on site (equivalent to about 60 to
65 days of consumption). Coal is deliv-
ered using pneumatically actuated bottom-
dump cars that drop coal onto feeders. An
“A-frame” structure supports a vibratory
shaker that, with an electric heater, is able
to remove sticky, wet, or frozen coal from
the rail cars. Dry roto-clone systems keep
the dust produced during the unloading pro-
cess well under control. A surfactant is also
sprayed on the coal during unloading for
dust control, when required.
The “A” side coal unloading system is con-
figured with below-grade dump hoppers out-
fitted with vibratory feeders that direct coal
onto conveyor belt systems that terminate at
the radial stacker-reclaimer centrally located
in the main coal storage pile (Figure 1). The
conveyor belt is protected with a fixed nozzle,
open spray deluge system monitored and trig-
gered by a thermistor wire. The coal bins are
located indoors, although the filter houses are
outdoors. Once coal is delivered to the pile,
three Caterpillar D10 dozers keep the coal
|
PRB COAL
representative, and a corporate safety
2. Stuck in the middle. The arrangement of the two-unit plant required the two main representative—meets monthly. The craft
fuel transfer conveyors to pass through the common plant stack and through the boiler house
to reach the fuel silos located on the opposite side of the boiler house. Courtesy: Bill Konefes,
safety representative is elected to serve in
PRBCUG that position by peers.
■ The plant safety director conducts a daily
safety tour of the plant, and all plant em-
ployees are trained to be vigilant in identi-
fying potential safety issues.
■ “Stop work” authority is delegated to all
employees when an unsafe condition is
observed.
■ Contractors must submit a safety plan for
approval prior to beginning work.
■ Of the 141 plant employees, 135 are emer-
gency response trained.
■ The plant has a 40-member fire brigade
for interior firefighting, and all employees
are trained in incipient firefighting.
Workers participate in a safety observation

program called Crew to Crew (C2C). C2C re-
quires workers to complete a job briefing and
hazard recognition form prior to the start of
each job. If hazards are identified, they must
be escalated to a supervisor for resolution.
storage area well-groomed. The reclaim sys- also performed by craft supervisors. C2C also requires daily supervisor visits to
tem collects coal from the pile and conveys it Fire protection water is supplied by three every location in the plant where work is be-
to the transfer house, where magnetic metal pumps; two are electric drive and one is ing performed. It is the supervisor’s respon-
separation occurs. Coal is then conveyed to driven by a diesel engine. Pumps are tested sibility to talk with those doing the work and,
the surge bin located on each unit, which, in weekly. The plant’s fire control panel is lo- by using a prescribed check sheet, to identify
turn, sends coal to one of the six unit silos. The cated within the combined control room and emerging safety issues that require immedi-
“B” side system, which is virtually identical in is monitored around the clock by the control ate attention, develop modifications to exist-
operation, provides redundancy. room operators. ing job plans, and/or identify future training
The single coal supply incline from the needs.
transfer house to the boiler island contains Organized for Success Finally, IMPROVE, the plant’s work
two independent conveyor systems (Figure RIEC employs 141 full-time employees. The management system, is used to capture rec-
2). The twin conveyors run through an engi- plant’s operations and maintenance (O&M) ognized hazards and near misses. The feed-
neered opening in the stack’s shell structure, staff is organized with five rotating opera- back is then reviewed by the appropriate craft
through the stack, across the boiler house, tions teams, plus 45 maintenance craft work- supervisor and safety supervisor. The safety
and to the tripper (cascade) floor and the coal ers and 10 fuel operators. All plant operators supervisor is responsible for recording,
silos. The open conveyors are the cause of are also cross-trained in a maintenance skill tracking, and disseminating all safety-related
minor combustible dust releases within the and spend approximately one-half of their issues to the plant director and to other Ame-
building that are ably handled by the house- shift performing plant maintenance. Ameren ren facilities.
keeping staff. also has a traveling maintenance group of ap-
As part of the plant’s conversion to PRB proximately 70 craft workers that augment Current Coal Challenges
coal, conveyor side panels and under-convey- the plant maintenance staff during major RIEC has made many PRB coal-related im-
or dribble and sluice pans were installed on maintenance outages. provements since converting the plant to burn
the two conveyors. The side panels prevent Boiler outages are scheduled every six PRB coal 20 years ago. Prime examples are
coal particles from escaping into the boiler years and turbine outages every 12 years. the improvements made to its coal-handling
house, and the dribble and sluice pans help The plant’s annual O&M budget (less fuel) systems, such as explosion-proof electrical
capture and direct washdown slurry to a con- is approximately $24 million, and the capital system upgrades, installing semi-automatic
tainment area outside the boiler building. budget is about $2.5 million, which doesn’t washdown systems, dust suppression system
Washing of these conveyors occurs every two include major capital projects. additions, improved chute and skirt board
weeks, or more often, as needed. The plant’s outstanding safety record is seals, and fire protection system upgrades.
A crew of 10 laborers are assigned house- demonstrated by just six lost work accidents The plant also installed passive and fixed
keeping duties for the fuel unloading and occurring over the past 10 years. An effective fire detection suppression systems through-
delivery systems. The normal practice is to safety culture begins at the top. Litzinger hosts out the plant and on its fuel-handling sys-
wash down unloading areas of combustible a monthly all-hands safety meeting that is also tems. Flow-controlled transfer chutes were
dust after each train is unloaded. Washdown video recorded for replay by shift workers. installed so that the fuel-handling system
in the fuel unloading area relies on hoses. Other important safety programs include: would efficiently handle the increased coal
Washdowns on the tripper deck with hoses flow. Upgrades were made to the plant’s bun-
and a floor deluge system are conducted once ■ The Plant Safety Steering Committee— kers, silos, and bins (silos) to reduce bridging
a week. Monthly housekeeping audits are consisting of senior plant staff, a craft and rat-holing. Erratic flow through silos is
POWER July 2016
PRB COAL
especially troublesome as PRB coal is more Ameren Missouri’s Rush Island Energy Cen- Rush Island Energy Center and contrib-
prone to spontaneous combustion during ter for being chosen as the 2016 PRBCUG uted to this report include Bill Konefes
coal flow stoppages. Finally, coal conveyors Plant of the Year! For further information (Georgia-Pacific and Chairman, PRBCUG);
along with the support structures were retro- on RIEC or the plant improvement projects Andrew Dobrzanski (DTE Energy and
fitted with automatic fixed sprinkler systems. outlined in this article, please contact Plant Vice Chairman-Genco); Jim Wiseman
For 2016, the plant’s continuous improve- Director Mark Litzinger (314-992-9201 or (Wiseman Consulting Services and Vice
ment program is focused on improving plant [email protected]). Additional infor- Chairman-Industry); Erick Dieperink (Lumi-
operations in two important ways: reducing mation on the PRBCUG and its awards pro- nant); James Rauba (FM Global); Jeff Kite
boiler fouling and reducing fly ash dusting gram is available at www.prbcoals.com. ■ (Diamond Power International Inc.); and
originating at coal mill primary air ducts. Greg Krieser (OPPD Omaha Public Power
Reduce Furnace Fouling. Effective fur- —Dr. Robert Peltier, PE is POWER’s District).
nace sootblowing is required in order to keep consulting editor. The members of the
the furnace tubes clean. Each unit uses 80 PRBCUG board of directors that visited the
steam wallblowers and long retractable blow-
ers (recently increased from 18 to 66) for tube
wall cleaning, a mixture of Copes-Vulcan and
Clyde Bergemann designs. Three additional
long retractable sootblowers are currently
planned for installation on each unit. Steam is
the sootblowing medium of choice.
The Griffin intelligent combustion con-
trol system is also used for intelligent soot-
blowing (ISB). The ISB is principally used
to determine cleaning times and intervals,
although operators must occasionally manu-
ally run select blowers to manage steam
temperature control. Periodic load drops are POWER is the leading source for power
intermittently required for slag shedding,
particularly during summer months after a generation news, technology, and analysis
long run at—or long periods of operation at used by more than 65,000 plant managers,
or near—full load. Online boiler washdowns engineers, technicians, and those who
are scheduled about twice a year.
Routine maintenance of sootblowers was support the power industry.
problematic, so a few years ago RIEC set up
a dedicated sootblower maintenance shop.
Sootblower availability was greatly improved POWER covers the industry across
as a result of having the dedicated mainte-
nance shop. On the day of the visit, Unit 1
multiple channels:
had only three of 80 wall blowers out of ser-
vice, three more wall blowers were available
for local start only, and only one long retract- 
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able sootblower was out of service. On Unit
2, only three wallblowers were out of service.
Reduce Fly Ash Leaks. The plant main-
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books and reference material
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exhausted into the boiler house for the past
  POWER Buyers’ Guide
three years. The problem often overwhelms  GAS POWER e-newsletter print and website
the plant’s housekeeping staff because air-
borne fly ash tends to settle everywhere in
the boiler house, and the turbine deck often
receives a light dusting as well. Recent work
completed on Unit 1 is expected to signifi-
cantly reduce the dusting problem, and Unit facebook.com/ POWER Magazine and Women
2 modifications will be completed during the POWERmagazine in Power Generation groups
unit’s next major outage. Fly ash does not
have the fire hazard potential of PRB coal @POWERmagazine POWER magazine
dust, so the presence of fly ash is principally
a worker respiratory hazard concern.
More Information powermag.com

Congratulations from the editorial staff of
25967
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|
FUELS
The Coal Refuse Dilemma: Burning
Coal for Environmental Benefits
The niche alternative energy industry that generates power from hazardous
piles of coal waste that litter the U.S. is facing an environmental Catch-22.
Sonal Patel
T
he torrent of coal mined and processed that a complete cleanup of AML sites will do, beyond reclamation—which is a com-
in the U.S. since the mid-1700s— cost about $16.1 billion. plicated task that requires addressing water
first sorted by the little, raw fingers Then, there’s the ever-present, exorbitant pollution from run-off and acid mine drain-
of “breaker boys” (Figure 1) and, later, by risk of fire. In 2014, PBAMR paid (using age discharges, site stabilization, covering
machinery—has produced hundreds of mil- emergency funds in a trust partially funded the pile with soil, and planting vegetation. In
lions of tons of coal “refuse” that was dis- by the coal industry via fees paid per ton of 1968, Pennsylvania became the first state to
carded for its very low heat content. This mined coal) Pennsylvania firm Minichi Inc. pass a law to address air pollution associated
waste coal—also known as culm, gob, or $2.2 million to snuff out a stubborn blaze at with coal refuse disposal.
boney, and often mixed in with rock, shale, the 100-foot-high, 4-acre bank of the Simp- On a federal level, it’s a similar struggle,
slurry, slate, clay, and other materials—has son Northeast coal refuse pile. The fire, ARIPPA noted. “Laws were enacted in the
been randomly stockpiled high on thousands which started out smoldering and ignited into late 1970s that now require coal mining com-
of acres of abandoned mine lands (AML), flames at the periphery of a vastly larger coal panies to reclaim the sites that they currently
scattered across landscapes in coal country, refuse area, took nearly six months to extin- mine. But by the time these laws were en-
sometimes filling up entire valleys with dark guish, requiring material excavation, mil- acted, a billion tons of coal refuse had been
gray moonscape-like formations. lions of gallons of water, and thousands of stockpiled, thousands of mine sites were
But over the years, the environmental im- gallons of firefighting foam (Figure 2). abandoned—and the former legally respon-
pact of these dumps has also crested. Refuse That’s just one example. At least 40 other sible parties had vanished,” it explained.
mounds, toxic to plant life, are barren and coal refuse piles—not including underground
therefore highly erosive. Unstable coal re- mine fires—are currently burning just in From Refuse to Resource
fuse piles can collapse, becoming potential Pennsylvania and will need to be addressed That’s why, ARIPPA says, its solution to use
disasters. And bituminous piles, in particular, at some point, the state agency says. coal refuse as fuel at power plants sited near
can leach concentrated levels of acid mine There’s not much the commonwealth can piles across the nation is indispensable.
drainage. “The cost of reclaiming these piles
using conventional AML techniques is high, 1. Breaker boys. This photo from 1911 captures a view of the Ewen Breaker of the Pa. Coal
and the extremely poor water quality is often Co., where boys—most aged eight to 12—spent 10 hours a day, six days a week, breaking and
beyond the reach of current passive treatment sorting coal, and picking out slate and other impurities, which were then dumped in coal refuse
technology,” noted ARIPPA, a trade organi- piles. The record notes that the “dust was so dense at times as to obscure the view.” Source:
National Archives and Records Administration
zation that started as the Anthracite Region
Independent Power Producers Association
but that has since adopted its acronymic
name, along with a broader mission to pro-
duce power from all varieties of the nation’s
coal refuse.
In Pennsylvania alone, where coal min-
ers have extracted about 16.3 billion short
tons of anthracite and bituminous coal
since commercial mining began in 1800,
the state is scarred by more than 5,000
abandoned, unreclaimed mining areas that
cover 184,00 acres. Coal refuse piles at
these mines undulate over an aggregate
area of 8,500 acres and contain a total vol-
ume of more than 200 million cubic yards.
And that’s a conservative estimate: AR-
IPPA guesses the amount of coal refuse in
the state is actually about 2 billion cubic
yards, split equally between the anthracite
and bituminous coal regions. The Pennsyl-
vania Bureau of Abandoned Mine Recla-
mation (PBAMR), meanwhile, estimates
POWER July 2016
FUELS
2. The long inferno. Crews spent six months dousing open

flames at the Simpson Northeast coal refuse fire near Fell Township,
Lackawanna County, Pa., in 2014. Temperatures fell into the single dig-
its for almost a month while crews worked. Source: Office of Surface
Mining Reclamation and Enforcement/Department of Interior
1.866.643.1010 ClearSpan.com/ADPO
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In its simplest sense, the process entails re-mining coal refuse piles
in accordance with surface mining regulations, and then processing
that material at the mine site by screening to remove rock and other
inert materials. The finer material—typically 75% or more of the coal
refuse—is used as fuel in a fluidized bed combustion boiler or circu-
lating fluidized bed (CFB) boiler. Combustion ash from the boiler—
which meets beneficial use criteria—is then returned to the mine site
and mixed with unusable coal refuse material as a way of neutralizing Fabric Structures Hybrid Buildings Foundation Solutions
any remaining acidic materials. The materials are then compacted in
place to contours as described in the surface mining permit. “As such
the concentration of the acidity as well as the metals such as iron, ZERO PERCENT FINANCING AVAILABLE RESTRICTIONS
MAY APPLY

aluminum, and manganese in surface and groundwater releases are
significantly reduced,” says ARIPPA.
The coal refuse–to-power solution was conceived in the aftermath Then, as Vincent Brisini, director of environmental affairs at Olympus
of the oil embargo of the 1970s. Just as Congress was preparing to Power, recently told congressional lawmakers, because coal refuse
vote for the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) in 1978, piles close to existing coal refuse plants have been successfully re-
CFB technology was being developed and showing a capability to moved, generators must source coal refuse from piles at ever-greater
convert low–heating value carbonaceous material (such as coal re- distances, which has added to transportation costs. And, as with con-
fuse) into energy. ventional coal plants, the economics of existing coal refuse plants
The first CFB plant designed to convert large quantities of coal have suffered in the advent of “abnormally low natural gas prices,”
refuse into power—the 30-MW Westwood Generating Station in and a “sluggish economy [that is] stifling electricity demand,” the
Schuylkill County, Pa.—came online in 1987. Eighteen more proj- trade group told POWER.
ects have since been grid-connected, 13 in Pennsylvania alone (Fig-
ure 3); two are in West Virginia, one in Montana, one in Utah, and An Environmental Muddle
one in Illinois. Lately, that economic burden has gotten even heavier owing to “fed-
The plants are owned by a diverse mix of companies, including eral regulatory policies that dramatically and unnecessarily increase
NRG Energy, Exelon, Olympus Power, Babcock & Wilcox Co., Fos- environmental compliance costs,” ARIPPA said.
ter Wheeler, Northern Star Generation, Pacific Gas and Electric, Kim- For the coal refuse generation sector, air pollution in particular poses
berly Clark, Cogentrix Energy, Olympus Power, Schuylkill Energy an environmental Catch-22 with no resolution in sight. The EPA em-
Resources, Waste Management, Southern Illinois Power Cooperative, phasized, when questioned by POWER in May, that coal refuse piles
and Colstrip Energy. Most power produced is sold in the PJM whole- are a marked environmental worry for their acid seepage and leach-
sale and capacity markets. Today, these plants—with a total capacity ate production, spontaneous combustion, and low soil fertility. It also
of 1,767 MW (see http://www.powermag.com/plants-that-turn-coal- acknowledged that “[u]nits that burn coal refuse provide multimedia
refuse-to-power/ for a slideshow of the plants)—have removed a environmental benefits by combining the production of energy with
purported 214 million tons of coal refuse from the environment at no the removal of coal refuse piles and by reclaiming land for productive
expense to taxpayers. use.” However, the agency underscored, they are still coal-fired power
But the sector that has been the darling of most coal-producing plants. They still emit hazardous air pollutants that the agency has de-
states—and lauded even by the Environmental Protection Agency termined are “significant” public health disadvantages.
(EPA)—for its potential to eradicate coal refuse piles and reclaim Critics of the niche industry, like the Pennsylvania arm of the En-
thousands of disfigured acres is facing new, debilitating challenges. ergy Justice Network project, contend that coal refuse plants aren’t
Lucrative power purchase agreements signed under PURPA are just inefficient, they also are far more polluting than new coal plants.
beginning to expire, forcing plants to compete in the open market. “The large new waste coal burning power plants planned for western
|
FUELS
said that the “EPA reasonably decided that
3. Plying the pile. The 102-MW Colver Power Project in Cambria County—a bituminous separate standards for coal-refuse-fired CFBs
coal mining region in western Pennsylvania—began operations in May 1995. The plant, owned
by independent power producer Inter-Power/AhlCon Partners, is equipped with a large circulat-
were not warranted.”
ing fluidized bed boiler. It is one of the state’s newest bituminous coal refuse power plants.
Courtesy: ARIPPA Looking to Congress for a
Resolution
Underscoring its message that “one regula-
tion does not fit all plants the same,” the in-
dustry has continued its fight to keep afloat
amid the deluge of environmental rules tar-
geting coal plants. Its cause has now been
taken up in Congress.
Rep. Keith Rothfus (R-Pa.) last Octo-
ber introduced the Satisfying Energy Needs
and Saving the Environment (SENSE) Act,
legislation that would modify the EPA’s
Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) by
allocating additional SO2 allowances for coal
refuse generators (but reducing allowances
elsewhere so the overall program cap does
not change). The bill also creates an alter-
native means of demonstrating compliance
with the hydrochloric acid (HCl) standard
under MATS by assuming that a 93% reduc-
[Pennsylvania] were granted permits in 2005 Meanwhile, the emissions of greenhouse tion in SO2 demonstrates compliance with
to release higher levels of [sulfur dioxide gases (GHGs) from these units can be con- the HCl standard.
(SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx)] and other sidered as offset due to the eventual in-place But the Obama administration has threat-
air pollutants than the normal pulverized coal burning of coal refuse piles, ARIPPA said. ened to veto the bill, raising concerns that
power plant proposed near Morgantown, “Coal refuse fires also result in the uncon- it chooses “winners and losers” because it
W.Va.,” the group pointed out. Also, “If 100 trolled release of the same pollutants that favors coal refuse generators over other fa-
tons of waste coal are burned, 85 tons will these plants control with high removal rates. cilities. At a House Subcommittee on Energy
remain as waste coal ash,” it said. Because these units provide electricity to the and Power hearing on the bill this February,
A better solution to the coal refuse problem grid they also reduce emissions from other speaking on ARIPPA’s behalf, Brisini refuted
would be to plant beach grass, which it says, fossil fuel–fired [electric generating units that argument, underscoring that coal variet-
citing research from the Natural Resources (EGUs)] which otherwise would be operat- ies have unique characteristics.
Conservation Service, “has been shown to ing. The reclamation and re-vegetation of Anthracite refuse plants can meet the
bring life back to long-dead waste coal piles for coal refuse sites also results in the expansion CSAPR alternative 2.0 standard because sul-
only 6-10% of the cost of conventional meth- of green spaces which aids in the sequestra- fur content in coal refuse from the anthracite
ods. Within a few years, beach grass enabled tion of GHGs,” it said. region is lower, but bituminous plants cannot,
native plants to take over, allowing organic The EPA told POWER that it has con- he said. “It is not because the technology is
matter to accumulate around plants, forming sidered and requested comment on separate different or they have anything special and it is
a plant layer that stopped erosion, held water, emission standards for coal refuse generators part of the problem when you lump all of these
cooled the surface, and looked better.” for various proposals. “In fact, EPA has es- things together not recognizing the [technical
ARIPPA contests the air pollution charge, tablished subcategory SO2 and NOx emission differences] in these kinds of fuels.” Mean-
saying its members take precautions to con- standards for new, modified and reconstruct- while, he noted, only two bituminous coal
trol emissions of SO2, NOx, air toxics, filter- ed coal refuse-fired EGUs,” it said. refuse plants can meet the HCl requirements
able particulate matter, and total particulate However, in the final MATS rule, the EPA under MATS. “No other plants, whether they
matter. Coal refuse power plants use CFB noted that the waste coal hazardous air pol- are bituminous coal refuse [or] anthracite coal
boilers, which use limestone injection for lutant emissions are not sufficiently different refuse, they don’t do it,” he said.
acid gas control, and they are also equipped from other coal-fired generators to warrant The bill continues its course through Con-
with fabric filter systems to control filterable further subcategorization. “There are EGUs gress and is currently under consideration by
particulate matter emissions, it explained. firing bituminous, subbituminous, and coal the Senate. Brisini remains hopeful that the
The nation’s coal refuse plants are also the refuse among the top performing units for acid gas issue is resolved by the SENSE Act
lowest emitters of mercury of all coal genera- mercury emissions. EGUs firing bituminous, or other regulatory amendments.
tion facilities, even though coal refuse may subbituminous, lignite, and coal refuse are If all fails, “the measures that would have
be higher in mercury content, ARIPPA said, also all among the top performers for the acid to be taken by bituminous coal refuse–fired
noting that multiple coal-refuse units were gas and non-mercury metallic emissions. electric generating units to allow them to
included in the EPA’s Maximum Achievable This indicates that the MACT floor limits es- meet the acid gas limit would likely prevent
Control Technology (MACT) floor calcula- tablished based on these units are achievable them from successfully participating in the
tions (top 12% performing units) used to by units burning all ranks of coal,” it said. PJM wholesale electric market, with the ex-
establish the emission standards for mercury This approach, the EPA noted, was upheld ception of the last coal refuse fired facility
and non-mercury metals as outlined in its by the D.C. Circuit’s April 2014 decision in built,” he noted. ■
Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS). White Stallion v. EPA. The court, in that case, —Sonal Patel is a POWER associate editor.
POWER July 2016
FUELS
Energy from Waste: Greenhouse
Gas Winner or Pollution Loser?
Is waste-to-energy the best greenhouse gas fighter among electric generating
technologies? Or do trash burners spew dangerous air emissions? The
answer may be a surprise.
Kennedy Maize
W
hat electricity-generating technol- renewables such as wind and solar, reflects European nations that signed on to the Kyoto
ogy results in net greenhouse gas this analysis of the ability of WTE to yield agreement saw WTE as a way to reduce meth-
(GHG) reductions, not just zero net negative GHG emissions. Paul Gillman, ane-generating landfills while increasing re-
new emissions? According to the U.S. Envi- senior vice president and chief sustainability cycling and energy production. “In Germany,”
ronmental Protection Agency (EPA), it’s not officer at Covanta, a leading waste manage- Gillman said, “less than 1% of waste goes to
nuclear, not wind, not solar. ment company in the U.S., told POWER that landfills.” Denmark has banned landfills, turn-
Give up? Waste-to-energy (WTE, known the EPA’s Clean Power Plan tells states they ing entirely to recycling and WTE for manag-
to some as “trash-to-cash”), according to the can consider energy from waste “as a mitiga- ing its waste stream (Figure 1).
EPA and a recent analysis by the Depart- tion tool” to meet requirements under the new Compared to the U.S., European countries
ment of Energy’s National Renewable En- regulations. have greater population densities and less
ergy Laboratory (NREL) is the only electric Covanta, with 43 WTE plants (41 in North territory available for landfills. They often
generating technology that actually reduces America and two in Europe), is now pitching have government-owned waste management
GHG emissions as it makes power. Mega- GHG reductions as among the reasons to em- agencies, which can streamline development
watts up; GHGs down. ploy the technology. It turns MSW into a stream of landfill alternatives. In Denmark, for ex-
According to the EPA, municipal solid of saleable recycled commodities—such as ample, WTE plants are owned by municipali-
waste (MSW) burners, using trash and gar- aluminum, copper, and plastics—along with ties or multiple-municipal agencies.
bage to generate electricity, separating out electricity and process steam that can be sold to In Asia, particularly China, noted Gill-
recyclable materials, will “actually reduce industrial users or district heating systems. All man, the Kyoto Protocol mechanisms cre-
the amount of [GHG emissions] in the atmo- this while reducing landfill methane. Gillman ated an economic incentive to reduce GHGs
sphere compared to landfilling. The savings notes that Europe and Asia, which signed on to in order to generate reduction credits saleable
are estimated to be about 1.0 tons of GHGs the 1997 Kyoto Protocol—which the U.S. re- to the European Union countries. According
saved per ton of MSW combusted.” jected and which is now a dead letter—spurred to Gillman, more than 300 WTE projects are
The EPA bases its calculations on methane WTE for GHG reductions. now operating in China, and more than 100
emissions from landfills. Methane is a much are under construction (see sidebar “World’s
more potent GHG than carbon dioxide (CO2) International Support for WTE Largest Waste-to-Energy Plant”). China, he
in the short term (although methane spends
less time than CO2 in the atmosphere). Burn-
ing the trash that produces methane in land- 1. Not just blowin’ smoke. The Amager Resource Center waste-to-energy plant is
under construction in Denmark, which has banned landfills. The plant has gained notoriety for
fills reduces overall GHGs.
integrating an artificial ski slope on the roof and a stack that will blow a water vapor “smoke
A 2011 NREL analysis looked at lifecycle ring” each time 250 kilograms of carbon dioxide are released. Courtesy: Bjarke Ingels Group
GHG emissions from electricity generat-
ing technologies. It found that wind has very
small lifecycle emissions, with nuclear a bit
above those, followed by solar. While all of
the conventional low-carbon technologies were
slightly positive in terms of GHG emissions in
lifecycle terms (the energy that went into mak-
ing and erecting the technologies as well as
emissions from operations), energy from waste
was the only option that reduced GHGs. WTE
projects prevent landfill methane emissions,
according to NREL; the other renewable tech-
nologies simply avoid new emissions.
Clean Power Plan Would Support

WTE
A little-noticed element of the EPA’s Clean
Power Plan, generally seen as a way to back
out coal-fired power and boost conventional
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FUELS
20 years went into commercial operation in
World’s Largest Waste-to-Energy Plant July 2015, in West Palm Beach, Fla., owned
by the Palm Beach County Solid Waste Au-
China has picked two Danish architectural thority. The 95-MW facility joined an exist-
2. Full circle. This design for a waste-
firms—Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects to-energy facility in Shenzhen, China, in- ing 20-year-old waste combustion and energy
and Gottlieb Paludan Architects—to de- cludes a rooftop visitors center. Courtesy: unit. A consortium of Babcock & Wilcox and
sign the world’s largest waste-to-energy Schmidt Hammer Lassen KBR designed and built the new plant.
(WTE) plant for the city of Shenzhen. The Covanta commissioned the most recent
project would burn some 5,000 tons of plant in North America in January this year
in the Canadian province of Ontario, the
municipal solid waste per day—about a
Durham York project (Figure 3), which burns
third of the waste generated by the city of
436 metric tons of MSW per day to produce
20 million, reports Deezen.com, a website 15.7 MW of baseload power.
covering architecture and design news. Wheelabrator’s latest project is the Fer-
Last December, a Shenzhen construc- rybridge “multifuel” project in North York-
tion-waste dump collapsed, killing what modern technical facility to deal with the shire in the UK, a 68-MW generator burning
press accounts said were “dozens of peo- city’s growing waste. At the same time it MSW, industrial waste, and wood waste,
ple.” Plans for the new WTE plant quickly aims to educate visitors to this growing co-located with an existing and retiring coal-
followed. waste challenge by taking them on an fired power plant.
According to the architects’ website, elevated walkway tour of the plant that
the circular facility a mile in diameter will ends with a 1.5 kilometer panoramic view
Challenging U.S. Economics for
“boast a 66,000-square meter roof, two
WTE
of both the surrounding mountains and
Why is the U.S. slow in turning waste into en-
thirds of which will be covered with solar the 66,000-square-meter roofscape that ergy? It’s a matter of market competition, said
photovoltaic panels, allowing the building will be geared to producing actual renew- Ted Michaels, head of the Energy Recovery
to generate its own sustainable supply of able energy.” Council. He told POWER, “Our industry is
energy.” The circular structure of the plant The companies’ descriptions and the strong, the facilities operate well; it’s a ma-
(Figure 2) will include a ramp that snakes press accounts do not indicate how much ture, not nascent, industry. But the industry is
from the ground to the roof, along with a electric capacity the project will provide operating in difficult economic conditions.”
rooftop visitors center. or what the project will cost, typical of WTE businesses in the U.S. face a triple eco-
The Deezem article quotes Chris Hardie, announcements out of China on develop- nomic whammy, according to Michaels. First,
head of the Schmidt Hammer Lassen of- ing energy projects. The project is sched- the chief economic driver of WTE is waste, not
fice in Shanghai, as saying, “The project energy. The facilities compete against landfills.
uled to be operational in 2020, according
Landfills charge a tipping fee for waste deliv-
firstly aims to provide a clean, simple and to press reports.
ered to their facilities. That becomes the price
WTE plants must meet to divert waste from the
3. Clean lines. Ontario’s Durham York 15.7-MW waste-to-energy plant burns 436 metric landfill to the energy project.
tons of municipal solid waste daily. Courtesy: Covanta “Power is a secondary function of the eco-
nomics of a waste-to-energy plant,” Michaels
said. “Our largest market is waste manage-
ment. That’s entirely different than wind
turbines, or biomass.” Michaels noted that in
the U.S., “Landfills remain cheap. That’s our
primary source of competition.”
To attract trash (aka fuel), a U.S. WTE
project must offer a lower tipping fee than a
landfill. The waste incinerators use offsetting
revenues from recycling and electric genera-
tion (and industrial steam in some cases) to
support their bids for the waste stream. Of
late, commodity prices for materials such
as metals, paper, and plastic have been his-
torically low, undermining the ability of the
recycling portion of the facility to compete
said, has about the same land mass as the idled but able to come into service), with against landfills.
U.S. but four times the population—a strong about 2,800 MW of baseload electricity gen- The crash in commodities prices has been
incentive against landfills and for WTE. erating capacity. The two dominant WTE devastating to recyclers and WTE generators
In the U.S., land for waste disposal is companies are publicly traded Covanta, across the board. The Washington Post noted
cheap and plentiful. WTE plants compete based in Morristown, N.J., with more than last year, “In short, the business of American
with landfills for the trash disposal dollar. 40 plants, and privately owned Wheelabra- recycling has stalled. And industry leaders
According to the Energy Recovery Council, tor Technologies, located in Hampton, N.H., warn that the situation is worse than it ap-
the industry’s Washington-based lobbying with 16 U.S. plants. pears.” Waste Management, the nation’s larg-
group, the U.S. has 84 WTE plants (four are The first new WTE project in the U.S. in est recycler, called it a “nationwide crisis.”
POWER July 2016
FUELS
Maryland Rejects New Baltimore Waste-to-Energy Plant

Maryland has traditionally been friendly toward turning trash into
4. Trash power plant target of trash talk. This Mary-
electricity, and the Northeast Maryland Waste Disposal Authority, land waste-to-energy plant has been the target of environmental-
a quasi-governmental group aimed at helping Maryland communi- ists’ claims that it causes pollution, though it has survived three
ties meet their waste disposal needs, has long been an advocate decades of environmental reviews. Courtesy: Wheelabrator
of waste-to-energy (WTE) projects.
Cars driving into Baltimore from I-95 and the Baltimore-
Washington Parkway for over 30 years have seen a large stack,
originally bearing the letters “BRESCO” down its side and, more
recently, “BALTIMORE” (Figure 4). That’s the exhaust stack for a
large WTE plant, commissioned in 1985, now operated by Wheela-
brator Technologies, and long a target of environmental activists
for alleged air pollution problems. The project has survived mul-
tiple environmental reviews over three decades.
A small WTE project in Harford County, north of Baltimore near
the Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) Aberdeen Proving Ground,
closed down last March when its lease with the DOD expired and
the Pentagon chose not to renew it. The plant began operations have long suffered from respiratory problems such as asthma and
in 1988 and attracted little local notice. lung cancer. In fact, a 2013 study on emissions-related mortality
At about the same time as the Harford County plant’s lease ex- rates found Baltimore to be the deadliest city, with 130 out of
pired, a proposal for another large Baltimore WTE project, years in every 100,000 residents likely to die each year from long-term
the works, collapsed. The Baltimore Sun reported that the Maryland exposure to air pollution.”
Department of the Environment told developer Energy Answers In- Ted Michaels of the Energy Recovery Council had a different
ternational of Albany, N.Y., that a 2010 permit for a project in south take on the events in Baltimore. He told POWER that cancellation
Baltimore’s Curtis Bay neighborhood was no longer valid. of the 2010 state license for the Curtis Bay project came because
The project would have been the largest in the U.S., converting the developer hadn’t lived up to the terms of the permit. “Mary-
some 4,000 tons of solid waste per day into 160 MW of baseload ca- land withdrew the permit because not enough construction activ-
pacity. The project drew opposition from local activists, who claimed ity had occurred. The terms of the permit had been violated,” he
that the plant would harm schools and parks in the neighborhood, said. The Baltimore Sun reported that state environmental regula-
as well as homes in the area. Opponents said the project would be tors concluded that the developers of the project had not met the
a prodigious producer of oxides of nitrogen and particulate pollu- permit requirements for “continuous construction.”
tion, although the plant would have met all federal Environmental Are activists’ objections to mass-burn technologies technically
Protection Agency NOx and particulate emissions standards. valid? In the online news site Huffington Post, science writer
Baltimore activist Destiny Watford last April won a $175,000 Shawn Lawrence Otto wrote, “Today’s waste-to-energy (WTE)
“Goldman Environmental Prize” for organizing community opposi- plants are not your granddaddy’s trash burners. . . . Some lib-
tion to the WTE project, along with kudos from New York Times en- eral groups, like the Center for American Progress, are starting to
vironment blogger Andy Revkin. The citation read, “Curtis Bay is look at the actual science and reevaluating long-held assumptions
a highly industrialized community in south Baltimore with a his- in light of new information and increasing concern over climate
tory of displacing people to make room for oil refineries, chemical change. When they do, they are finding that today’s waste-to-
plants, sewage treatment plants, and other facilities that emit energy plants look surprisingly good for the environment and for
pollution. Those left to live within breathing distance of industry fighting climate change.”
The company, based in Houston, said its re- omy, drove down electricity demand, and cut according to the Waste Dive online newsletter.
cycling division posted a $16 million loss in into the price of recycled commodities. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission
the first quarter of 2015, and it has shut 10 of continues to back the project. The state has
its largest recycling facilities. The Washing- The Environmental Debate nine WTE plants, the most in the region.
ton Post article concluded, “A storm of fall- Environmental opposition also burdens WTE Claims about harms from waste incinera-
ing oil prices, a strong dollar and a weakened plants. Fervent opponents of the projects assert tion and energy recovery are based on out-
economy in China have sent prices for Amer- that incinerating waste produces dangerous dated data, according to the industry and
ican recyclables plummeting wordwide.” levels of airborne pollutants such as dioxins government regulators. The EPA has given
On top of that, low natural gas prices have and heavy metals, and that the resulting ash is both air emissions and ash toxicity a green
driven down the wholesale price generators hazardous. In Minnesota, three local groups— light. In addition to reducing landfill methane
of electric power can reap in competitive the Sierra Club, the Minnesota Public Interest emissions, proponents claim, WTE projects
markets. “Natural gas is a big driver of waste- Research Group, and Neighborhoods Organiz- reduce CO2 emissions by shipping waste to
to-energy economics, lowering the price for ing for Change—are trying to shut down the incinerators by rail, a less–energy intensive
wholesale power,” Michaels said. The global Hennepin Energy Recovery Center in Min- and less–transportation intrusive approach
economic crash of 2008 also slowed the econ- neapolis, claiming it harms the environment, than trucks hauling trash to landfills.
|
FUELS
Nevertheless, opponents of waste-burning U.S. natural gas prices, put another burden New Reasons to Consider WTE
projects repeatedly raise pollution issues, such on WTE economics. What’s the future for waste-to-energy in
as the claims of the Global Alliance for Incin- A classic example occurred in Frederick the U.S.? It’s uncertain. WTE lobbyist Mi-
erator Alternatives (see sidebar “Maryland Re- County, Md., a neighbor to Montgomery chaels notes that “31 states, the District
jects New Baltimore Waste-to-Energy Plant”). County (home of pricey Washington, D.C., of Columbia, and two territories have de-
suburbs and a 1985-built 52-MW Covanta fined waste-to-energy as renewable energy
Changing Fate for U.S. WTE WTE plant burning 1,800 tons per day of in various state statutes and regulations,
In the U.S., the 1978 Public Utility Regula- trash, sitting next door to an elderly 850-MW including renewable portfolio standards.”
tory Policies Act (PURPA) boosted the WTE coal-fired plant). Maryland in the 1980s ad- Twenty-two states specifically classify
sector because it encouraged non-utility and opted a policy of no new landfills in the state, WTE as meeting the requirements of their
unconventional electric generating technolo- which meant either local incineration or ship- renewable goals. Michaels argues that the
gies. The act also gave birth to today’s inde- ping waste out of state. Maryland joined a drive for GHG reductions will yield oppor-
pendent power sector, largely powered by growing list of states banning local landfills. tunities for waste projects.
natural gas. Connecticut, Covanta’s Gillman noted, “has Covanta’s Gillman says businesses may
The 1978 law galvanized WTE projects, no operating landfills.” push the U.S. toward more use of WTE.
which were able to meet the Federal En- Fast-growing Frederick County, home of “Lots of businesses have been issuing sus-
ergy Regulatory Commission’s criterion for the second-largest city in the state after Bal- tainability goals,” he said, “and they see
“qualifying facilities,” giving them access to timore, saw its decades-old landfill reaching improvements to the bottom line. Energy
subsidized rates. Many of the WTE projects capacity. The county signed a $471 million conservation has been the first tier, then on-
in the U.S. started up in the 1980s and early contract with Wheelabrator in 2008 to build site production and water resource manage-
1990s as a result of PURPA’s push for alter- a WTE incinerator, shared with nearby Car- ment. Now they’re moving in the direction
natives to conventional generation. roll County. The project got the needed state of making waste management more sustain-
Since then, a combination of factors, in- permits in 2012. able. ‘We want to reduce our greenhouse
cluding low-cost coal plants, low prices for By that time, the project had become politi- gas footprint,’ the executives are saying.
natural gas, and a decline in demand for elec- cally controversial. In 2014, an opponent of the ‘Let’s look to waste.’ ”
tricity slowed the WTE business. The col- project won election as Frederick County ex- Some businesses are also seeing waste
lapse of the U.S. (and worldwide) economy ecutive. She vowed to kill the deal. The county incinerators as a source of low-cost process
in 2008, along with the unexpected devel- commissioners scrapped the project, instead, steam, which is common in Europe. These
opment of fracking technologies to produce signing a contract to haul the county’s solid projects, says Gillman, “are a very reliable
soaring natural gas production, reducing waste to an out-of-state landfill for five years. source of steam,” with the plants operating
in continuous baseload mode. “Industries are
attracted to that reliability,” said Covanta pu-
bic information official James Regan.
4 Times Faster than Turn-of-Nut In the U.S., the sector’s future may lie in
Call for EPC Testimonial rebutting and overcoming the conventional,
anti-pollution mantra of local opponents to
waste incineration. The liberal and environ-
DuraSquirt DTIs ®®
mentally oriented Center for America Prog-
ress (CAP) made its case for WTE recently:
“It is environmentally unsustainable to take
• No Feeler Gage Required garbage and bury it in the ground at land-
fills, where it decomposes and releases po-
• Weatherproof
tent greenhouse-gas pollution. What’s more,
• Self-Marking some trash has to be transported by diesel
trucks or trains to landfills several hundred
• Inspection on Your miles away, further exacerbating its pollution
Schedule footprint. Though garbage is not something
we tend to actively think about on a daily
basis, specifically as it relates to climate
change, the United States must begin de-
veloping policies to limit the environmental
consequences that result from our generation
of garbage.”
The path to that policy, says CAP: “The
the best way to bolt! United States must begin developing national
policies to deal with the waste-management
1 800 552 1999 problem our country faces every day. Do-
appliedbolting.com ing so will ultimately reduce emissions that
cause climate change.” ■
[email protected]
—Kennedy Maize is a long-time energy
journalist and frequent contributor to
TRAINING • FIELD SUPPORT • TECHNICAL EXPERTISE POWER.
POWER July 2016
FUELS
Understanding and Mitigating
Metallurgical Effects of Coal
Blending and Switching
Fuel blending and switching has become the norm in response to regulatory
and market forces, but many older boilers were designed for a particular
fuel. Understanding the effects of different fuels on combustion system
metals is crucial for ensuring smooth operations.
Rama S. Koripelli, PhD
I
s there a clear distinction between good relatively low cost make it attractive for the high-temperature superheater or reheater cir-
and bad fuel to burn in a particular boiler? power industry. cuits due to a combination of staged combus-
Apparently not! Some fuels may contain Some other major differences between tion and higher FEGT (Figure 1). Low-NOx
higher heating values, but they may also PRB and bituminous coals are found in con- burners and overfire air can further exacer-
possess characteristics that cause emissions centrations of ash, calcium oxide, and mag- bate this situation.
problems, as well as operational and reliabil- nesium oxide. The concentrations of these The reducing conditions formed during
ity challenges. Other fuels may be more envi- oxides in PRB coal are much higher than in staged combustion promote the formation
ronmentally friendly, but may contain higher bituminous coals, which affects the ash melt- of hydrogen sulfides and porous metallic
moisture content and lower heating values. ing temperature and radiant heat absorption sulfides on the pressure parts of the boiler
Ideally, the “right fuel” is that for which a capacity in the furnace area. Reduced radiant or furnace. These sulfide scales are more
boiler is designed or retrofitted to specifi- heat absorption capacity in the furnace area porous and less protective than oxides. Re-
cally burn. is a product of higher reflectivity or lower ducing conditions also promote carburiza-
Congress extensively amended the Clean emissivity of the deposit. This reduced heat tion of T91 (Figure 2) and stainless steel,
Air Act in 1990. Following those changes, the transfer capacity in the furnace impairs the resulting in a loss of corrosion and oxida-
Environmental Protection Agency began im- thermal efficiency by raising the furnace exit tion resistance.
posing more stringent emissions regulations gas temperature (FEGT). Although PRB coal contains lower ash
in the mid-1990s, which led to fuel blend- content, it requires higher throughput to
ing and switching becoming the norm. Of Slagging and Fouling Problems meet full-load conditions. Therefore, ero-
course, there are other factors—such as cost, Slagging and fouling may be elevated in sion problems may be exacerbated because
availability of mines, and meeting full-load
requirements in a dynamic environment—
1. Bridging the gap. Secondary combustion contributes to high furnace exit gas temper-
that have also influenced fuel blending or atures, resulting in slagging and fouling in high-temperature circuits. Courtesy: David N. French
switching decisions. Metallurgists
Pros and Cons of PRB Coal

The use of Powder River Basin (PRB) coal,
whether as a blend or a switch, has tremen-
dously increased in response to economic
and regulatory changes. PRB coal gained
a tremendous amount of interest for its
abundant availability, as well as its lower
sulfur content, which results in lower SOx
emissions.
PRB coal has higher moisture content
than other coals due to its porous structure.
For that reason, PRB coal offers a lower heat-
ing value (around 8,000 Btu/lb) compared to
high-sulfur bituminous coals (about 13,000
Btu/lb). Even so, PRB coal often has eco-
nomic advantages over the latter.
There can also be significant fuel flex-
ibility advantages when blending coal. The
low-sulfur characteristics of PRB coal and its
POWER July 2016
FUELS
2. A closer look. This image is a microscopic picture showing carburization of T91 steel 3. Jeepers creepers. This image shows
tube, which reduces corrosion and oxidation resistance of the material. Courtesy: David N. creep damage in the heat-affected zone of the
French Metallurgists T22 side of a dissimilar-metal weld. Courtesy:
David N. French Metallurgists
4. Degrading conditions. This scan-

ning electron microscope image shows chain
graphitization in carbon-molybdenum steel.
Courtesy: David N. French Metallurgists
of these lower heating values when switching harmful HCl emissions (see “Operational
from high-ranked coals. Higher FEGTs due Considerations When Burning Higher-
to a combination of reduced emissivity and Chlorine Coal” in the February 2015 issue prior to blending or switching to different
delayed combustion significantly affect the and online at powermag.com). coals. Decision makers must gather infor-
finite life of dissimilar-metal welds (DMWs, Chlorine is like sulfur in that it promotes mation on the characteristics of fuels to be
Figure 3). significant corrosion issues in the waterwall blended or switched. The fact that individual
These material transitions are in place for and high-temperature circuits. A reducing fuel characteristics can be much different
a particular reason: specifically, to support environment exacerbates chlorine corro- than the blended characteristics makes this a
limited allowable stresses in high-tempera- sion. The question of how much chlorine is difficult task.
ture circuits. Any additional thermal loading too much is interesting and rather subjective. Implementing improved operational,
due to higher FEGTs reduces the remain- Some plants have managed to burn fuel con- maintenance, and repair strategies can help
ing useful life of DMWs and materials used taining 0.3% chlorine with limited corrosion minimize adverse effects of fuel blending
in primary superheat and reheat circuits. effects, while other units have experienced or switching. Blending is rather more com-
These often contain carbon and carbon- severe corrosion even when less than 0.2% plicated than just mixing two or more fuels
molybdenum steels, which are susceptible chlorine is present in the coal. together. Improper mixing of fuel blends
to metallurgical degradations, specifically In general, a majority of industry experts may cause load swings due to variable heat
graphitization (Figure 4) and spheroidiza- seem to accept about 0.2% chlorine as the content in the coal pockets. A more homog-
tion, at elevated temperatures. threshold to mitigate corrosion problems. enized blend will reduce various adverse ef-
Nevertheless, there are other factors that fects on boiler metallurgy. Better mixing of
Sulfur and Chlorine Challenges influence chlorine corrosion, such as tem- coal and increasing coal fineness reduces
With scrubbers in place, Illinois basin coal perature, slag accumulation, the reducing carbon carryover, which minimizes second-
saw tremendous demand for its higher heat- environment, and fuel blends, so individual ary combustion issues.
ing value when compared to PRB coal, but it results vary. Improper blending promotes slagging
comes with its own troubles. It contains sig- It is commonly believed that a blend of issues in the high-temperature circuits
nificant sulfur (about 4%) and chlorine (the low-sulfur coal and high-chlorine coal tends and the formation of localized reducing
typical range is 0.2%–0.3%, but some results to reduce corrosion issues. However, this be- conditions. Metallurgical and corrosion
have been up to 0.5%). lief is based on largely anecdotal evidence. properties of metals and alloys used in
Sulfur and chlorine are detrimental to Using blends of high-chlorine and low-sulfur high-temperature circuits will not be com-
the environment because they produce SOx coals also increases liquid ash corrosion, and promised under oxidizing conditions and
and hydrochloric acid (HCl) emissions. high levels of chlorine can react with miner- designed FEGT. It is evident that second-
Interestingly, chlorine helps mercury (Hg) al-rich coals, resulting in the formation of a ary combustion causes several issues in the
catalyze into oxidized Hg, which is very corrosive environment. waterwalls as well as in the superheater
soluble in wet flue gas desulfurization sys- and reheater circuits.
tems, thus reducing Hg emissions. Howev- Coal Condition Is Important According to the modern standards in
er, the presence of chlorine still produces A great deal of research must be completed coal-fired units, the following coal fineness
|
FUELS
is recommended: at least 75% of weight design to have the correct stoichiometric ing of the pressure parts rather than informa-
should pass through a 200-mesh sieve mixture. tion-based cleaning. Time-based cleaning
(0.0029-inch opening) and 0%–0.2% weight Installation of low-NOx burners in coal- causes several adverse effects on plant per-
may remain in a 50-mesh sieve (0.0117 fired boilers has resulted in accelerated wa- formance and reliability. For one thing, ad-
inch). Coarse coal tends to increase carbon terwall wastage. Low-NOx burners result ditional heat input is required to remove
carryover and loss on ignition. Reducing the in more H2S being produced in the com- moisture introduced during the cleaning
coal particle size increases the surface area bustion gas rather than SO2 or SO3; this process, reducing the plant’s efficiency. Fur-
to mass ratio, effectively making the coal promotes increased corrosion rates. Weld thermore, excessive sootblowing of relatively
more reactive. Consequently, improved coal overlays of more corrosion-resistant alloys clean areas causes erosion and fatigue prob-
fineness will improve a plant’s efficiency like Inconel 622 and 625 have proven to be lems, which results in increased maintenance
and reduce emissions (see “Coal Pulverizer a suitable long-term solution for reduced and reduced reliability.
Maintenance Improves Boiler Combustion” tube wastage. It is recommended that an intelligent
in the December 2015 issue and online at To prevent failures related to higher cleaning system be deployed for boilers to
powermag.com). Inputs to burners should FEGTs, DMW joints can be relocated to a more efficiently clean the pressure parts
be accurate and dynamic in response during position where they are exposed to lower when and where required. The effective
load swings. temperatures. Also, the use of DMWs made cleaning of furnace tubes solves many sec-
with nickel-based filler metal (EPRI P87 ondary problems such as slagging or fouling,
Solutions to Common Problems or Inconel) is recommended, specifically high FEGT, and excessive usage of attem-
Improper blending may cause higher in creep-strength-enhanced ferritic steels. perator sprays. Thermal efficiency and reli-
FEGT, localized reducing conditions, and Nickel-based filler metal lessens the effects ability are improved when smart cleaning
secondary combustion. Decreasing sec- of the thermal expansion differences be- systems are used.
ondary combustion reduces hot-ash corro- tween stainless steel and ferritic steel. Ma- Fuel blending or switching can be a sound
sion, resulting from reduced superheat and terial transitions in the superheat and reheat economic decision. However, it demands
reheat temperatures. Maintaining oxidiz- circuits should be evaluated and adjusted proper studies and implementation of opera-
ing conditions inside the furnace potential- to ensure a satisfactory life. Superior-grade tional and maintenance changes. Otherwise,
ly eliminates the formation of porous iron steels may need to be extended during com- it can easily become a nightmare. ■
sulfide scales. Incorrect burner angles may ponent replacements to accommodate for —Rama S. Koripelli, PhD (rkoripelli@
result in localized reducing conditions. increased FEGT. davidnfrench.com) is technical director
Therefore, burners should be adjusted per Many plants implement time-based clean- for David N. French Metallurgists.
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POWER July 2016
ADVERTISERS’ INDEX
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COMMENTARY
China’s Coal Industry: Status
and Outlook
Niu Dongxiao, Song Zongyun, and Xiao Xinli
he years between 2002 and 2012 are called Golden Decade of coal. The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Mari-
T for the coal industry in China. After May 2012, the coal
industry fell into depression.
In the Golden Decade, a large amount of social capital inflow
time Silk Road (Belt & Road)—a development strategy proposed
by President Xi Jinping to increase exports, especially to Eur-
asia—can increase China’s coal exports to these countries. In
was attracted by increasing market demand and coal prices, but addition, the infrastructure in some underdeveloped areas like
it also resulted in overproduction. The recession in downstream Africa and Central Asia can’t satisfy their needs for economic
industries, including the steel industry and building materials development. China can provide them with steel, building ma-
industry, and the squeeze from non-fossil energy sources mainly terials, and other energy-intensive products, which can stimu-
contributed to the slump in the coal industry. The coal industry late domestic coal consumption and then relieve the pressure
in China is undergoing a very tough period. of oversupply. Belt & Road also provides a big chance for coal
enterprises in China to exploit the international coal market and
Challenges participate in international competition.
Here is a brief summary of some of the coal industry’s challenges. Energy Internet. The energy internet is an energy equiva-
Demand and Supply Decline. For the first 11 months in lence exchange and sharing network, which links the coal net-
2015, the coal supply in China was 3.55 billion tons, declining work, oil network, gas network, and other energy networks by
by 14.67% compared to 2014. For the first 10 months of 2015, using information technology, intelligent management technol-
coal demand was 3.23 billion tons, a drop of 4.7%. The high- ogy, to realize energy bidirectional flows. The energy internet is
speed growth in investment and excessive expansion in capacity end user–focused, so those who have the most customers will
from 2002 to 2012 resulted in unbalance between coal supply win. With the background of an energy internet and electric
and demand. With continued high levels of coal production even power system reform in China, coal enterprises can set up elec-
since 2012, the supply-demand ratio in 2014 reached its peak at tricity companies and sell electricity. This provides coal enter-
the value of 1.18. prises with a chance to dominate both the coal and end users in
Price Slump. Since 2012 coal prices in China have been on energy market.
the decline. The price of coal with a calorific value of 5,500
kcal/kg at Qinghuangdao Port fell by 20.89%, 0%, 13.93%, Support Policies
and 28.57% each year from 2012 to 2015. The price of coal in The Chinese government has issued lists of policies to help
2015 dropped to 370 CNY/ton, which was back to the level it the coal industry recover, which are mainly focused on elimi-
saw in 2004. nating “backward capacity” (polluting, unsafe, inefficient, and
Benefits Shrink. In 2015, more than 85% of coal enterprises other suboptimal enterprises), controlling the amount of coal
were in a deficit state. Profit declined to 40.08 billion CNY, equal produced (“yield control”), supporting clean coal development,
to the level in 2005. And, according to the latest data from the and the like. For example, Opinions on Solving Excessive Capac-
China National Coal Association, the average asset-liability ratio ity and Recovering Coal Industry (issued by State Council on
in the coal industry has reached 67.7%—the highest level in the February 5, 2016) indicates that backward capacity that doesn’t
past 16 years. conform to industrial policies will be eliminated. Notifications
Investment Declines. Weak coal prices and lower profits have on Implementing the Treatment Measures on Illegal Coal Mines
compressed investment in the industry. Fixed-asset investments (issued by National Development and Reform Commission on May
slowed down beginning in 2013. In 2015, investment was 400.8 26, 2015) points out that if thermal power enterprises purchase
billion CNY, 14.4% lower than in 2014. coal produced by illegal coal mines, the amount they are allowed
to generate will be reduced, as punishment.
Opportunities The coal industry in China has suffered from serious depres-
To be optimistic, opportunity coexists with the challenges. sion since 2012, and the tragedy continues in 2016. Fortunately,
Electric Power Substitution. Electric power substitution the opportunities above have provided great support, and the
means to substitute electricity for coal burning in end-use coal industry is striving to work its way out of the depression.
processes. Using electricity can improve coal-use efficiency, The coal industry in China still has bright prospects. ■
decrease decentralized coal pollution, and rationalize energy —Niu Dongxiao, PhD, a professor at North China Electric Power
consumption. It can improve the consumption ratio of thermal University (NCEPU), has been named distinguished Cheung
coal in total consumption, which will stimulate the rational uti- Kong Scholar by the Ministry of Education and has outstanding
lization of coal. What’s more, substituting electricity for decen- achievements in the field energy management, load forecast-
tralized coal use benefits larger and more efficient enterprises ing, energy system evaluation, and more. Song Zongyun and
and contributes to eliminating less-modern facilities. Xiao Xinli are doctoral students in the School of Economics and
Belt & Road. India and Southeast Asia import large amounts Management, NCEPU.
POWER July 2016
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July 2016 • Vol. 160 • No.

New Ways to Address

“Show Me” State Plant Wins

Our approach is flexible, both regarding services provided and contracting

ADVANCE CLASS TURBINES

COVER FOCUS: ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

Emissions Catalyst Issues for Fast-Start Combined Cycle Power Plants 31

Circulating Fluidized Bed Dry Scrubber Effectively Reduces Emissions 34

Weighing the Environmental Impacts of Wind and Solar 40

Avoiding Wildlife Impacts From Renewable Energy in Europe 43

SPECIAL REPORT: PRB COAL

56 Energy from Waste: Greenhouse Gas Winner or Pollution Loser? 59

Understanding and Mitigating Metallurgical Effects of Coal Blending

Phone: +1 (855) 483-7721 § Email: [email protected] § Web: www.terrasource.com/pm

Handling a World of Materials

CUSTOMER SERVICE Copyright: 2016 Access Intelligence. All rights reserved.

ACCESS INTELLIGENCE, LLC

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CIRCLE 4 ON READER SERVICE CARD

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4,706 Change from

52 868 New and

Employing Fuel Cells for

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1. Fatigue failure. This image shows a

I tion has prompted regulatory reforms by the Federal Energy

for the electric power grid

Courtesy: RoyalBroil/Wikipedia/Creative Commons 4.0

1. A time for change. Westar Energy is

Groundwater Monitoring Organo- Ferric

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Table 1. Summary of PM measurement options. Source: TRC Companies Inc.

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60 into the same fixed cross-section, the flow dis-

have reduced best available control technology

and 5 ppm NOx and 2 to 5 ppm ammonia slip,

60 30 In ozone nonattainment areas, air permit limits

Stack NOx, turbine exit NOx and

July 2016 POWER | www.powermag.com 33

Courtesy: Wood Group

As power plant reporting requirements for emissions regulations increase in

Identifying Specific Value

■ Is there a lack of connectivity between

Weighing the Environmental

Courtesy: Silicor Materials

Renewable generation is usually characterized as more environmentally friendly

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Europe has been in the forefront of renewable energy development, and

Tidal Power Draws Concern

■ “High densities of wintering or migratory

April 10–13, 2017

Did you know the Institute of Clean Air Companies (ICAC)