Ultra-Supercritical Pressure CFB Boiler Conceptual Design Study
Electric utility interest in supercritical pressure steam cycles has revived in the United States after waning in the 1980s. Since supercritical cycles yield higher plant efficiencies than subcritical plants along with a proportional reduction in traditional stack gas pollutants and CO{sub 2} release rates, the interest is to pursue even more advanced steam conditions. The advantages of supercritical (SC) and ultra supercritical (USC) pressure steam conditions have been demonstrated in the high gas temperature, high heat flux environment of large pulverized coal-fired (PC) boilers. Interest in circulating fluidized bed (CFB) combustion, as an alternative to PC combustion, has been steadily increasing. Although CFB boilers as large as 300 MWe are now in operation, they are drum type, subcritical pressure units. With their sizes being much smaller than and their combustion temperatures much lower than those of PC boilers (300 MWe versus 1,000 MWe and 1600 F versus 3500 F), a conceptual design study was conducted herein to investigate the technical feasibility and economics of USC CFB boilers. The conceptual study was conducted at 400 MWe and 800 MWe nominal plant sizes with high sulfur Illinois No. 6 coal used as the fuel. The USC CFB plants had higher heating value efficiencies of 40.6 and 41.3 percent respectively and their CFB boilers, which reflect conventional design practices, can be built without the need for an R&D effort. Assuming construction at a generic Ohio River Valley site with union labor, total plant costs in January 2006 dollars were estimated to be $1,551/kW and $1,244/kW with costs of electricity of $52.21/MWhr and $44.08/MWhr, respectively. Based on the above, this study has shown that large USC CFB boilers are feasible and that they can operate with performance and costs that are competitive with comparable USC PC boilers.
- Research Organization:
- Foster Wheeler Development
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- FC26-03NT41737
- OSTI ID:
- 908300
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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