Thermodynamics: Efficiency Improvement in Coal-Powered Plant Outline
In coal-powered energy plant there a lot of heat losses that emanates from processes themselves and wear and tear phenomenon of the machine and the system as a whole. For example, Lignite coal contains 15 to 30 %
moisture contents as opposed to bituminous coal that has less than 10% of the moisture content (Xu et al., 2014). A considerable amount of heat produced by low-rank coal is used to dry this moisture instead of
generating energy to turn the turbine. This dissipation creates inefficiency in the boiler, and the best way to overcome this heat energy loss is to use the waste heat from flue gas and cooling water systems to pre-dry the low-rank coal before combustion takes place in the boilers.
This tapping will ensure the heat generated will not be dissipated but provides the steam to turn the turbine and hence increasing the efficiency of the boilers. According to Cai and colleagues (2017), they estimated that
this improvisation increases efficiency by 0.1% to 0.7 % on average.
Water used to cool the steam condenser usually exit to the water bodies with a lot of heat energy. This heat dissipation can be tunneled to other alternative use within the system by replacing the heat transfer surface and tuning cooling tower and condensers. It is expected to increase efficiency by a margin of 0.2% to 1% on average (Noble, Dombrowski, Bernau & Morett, 2016). Such technology of conserving heat energy is paramount in
coal-powered plant and as more energy will be channeled to steam the turbine and hence increase the power capacity of the plant.
Soot blower optimization approach used to inject air under pressure intermittently, and high velocity across the boiler surface to remove ash deposits and dross can be used to increase the efficiency further. The timing of the air injection into the tube can get computerized or neural linked so that to minimize the cooling of the steam within the turbine. This improvement will prevent unnecessary cooling of the steam and hence saving heat energy to power the turbines. Cai and colleagues (2017) also posit that intelligent soot blowing in response to real-time conditions in the boilers will increase the efficiency of the system by 0.1% to 0.65%. The implementation of this technology will profoundly make the cleaning of the turbine a necessary process devoid of net loss in energy hence feasible even in the long run.
Another possible mechanism for increasing the efficiency is reducing the amount of heat that get lost due to the exit of flue gas from preheater with high temperatures ranging from 250 and 350 F depending on the acid due
factor. The temperatures get determined by the current ratios of sulfuric acid and moisture content of the flue gas. According to Xu and colleagues (2014), this heat can further get …
