Comparing coal handling system costs
- Northern States Power Co., Minneapolis, MN (United States)
Good maintenance practices and proactive planning are essential to ensure coal handling equipment performance, but a look at the entire cost of handling coal has yielded some surprising conclusions. Optimizing a given system can be challenging and requires a close analysis of the total cost. This article addresses the cost analysis of the coal handling system at the Northern States Power Co. (NSP) Sherburne County Plant (Sherco); the largest coal-fired plant in Minnesota. Sherco consists of two Combustion Engineering 750-MW tangentially fired boilers and one 850-MW Babcock and Wilcox wall-fired unit. The two 750-MW units are fitted with wet limestone scrubbers to control both particulates and sulfur. The 850-MW unit, on the other hand, is connected to a Joy Niro dry scrubber and baghouse. All of the coal consumed by Sherco is sub-bituminous Powder River Basin Coal from Montana and Wyoming. The coal is purchased from half a dozen mines including Westmoreland, Colestrip, Black Thunder, Antelope and Rochelle. Although quite similar in heating value and moisture content, these coals differ markedly in ash content, sulfur content, dustiness and spontaneous heating characteristics.
- OSTI ID:
- 220609
- Journal Information:
- Power Engineering (Barrington), Vol. 100, Issue 3; Other Information: PBD: Mar 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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