Combustion System Solution to overcome Design Issues with Combustion for a Wide Range of U.S. Coals – Development to Commercial Operation

摘要

Utility power plant operators are reacting to current power supply market conditions and increasingly stringent environmental legislation. One route being adopted by some utilities is reducing operating costs through utilization of less expensive coals and the utilization of flue gas cleaning technologies. Combusting a wider range of coals introduces significant challenges to fuel handling and firing systems compared with the original design fuels - the combustion systems must continue to achieve high combustion efficiency and low NOx performance. Doosan Babcock has recently retrofitted thirty 81 MWth burners to a 834 MWe (Gross electrical output) supercritical boiler in the USA to accommodate the firing of a high sulfur Eastern US bituminous coal. The burner design represents an advancement of the Doosan Babcock low NOx axial swirl burner technology. This paper gives an overview of the design and verification process adopted by Doosan Babcock for the proposed combustion system modifications. It includes the use of full-scale single burner testing on US coals and presents results from recently-completed plant acceptance testing.