COTES and SibGenCo: Efficient Methods to Improve Reliability of Coal-Fired TPPs

On Thursday, November 5th, COTES held the first Knowledge Day after a long period. Already in spring, the conferences have become open and international: in addition to Russian participants, the participants from Serbia, Germany, and other countries also join to listen to speakers. In autumn, the open lecture format was updated again: now, invited practitioners are also engaged together with the COTES employees. Yuri Skryabin, Chief Engineer at the Novosibirsk CHPP-5, and Dmitry Kochergin, Engineer at COTES Engineering, were the first experts to use the updated format of the event. They have told us about operation reliability improving methods for coal-fired TPPs are actually efficient, and have used the Novosibirsk stations as examples.

Yuri Skryabin, Chief Engineer at the Novosibirsk CHPP-5, has made a report titled “Installation of Heating Surface Cleaning System for the Boiler Equipment at the Novosibirsk CHPP-5”. He has told us about pre-conditions for implementing soot-blowers at the Novosibirsk CHPP-5, about the operative decisions and lessons learned after implementation. Clyde Bergemann vapor and water soot-blowers providing burner clean-up as well as shielded and convective vapor superheater were installed by COTES Engineering in 2018 after examination and trial burning of non-design coals. All works for equipping 6 boilers with soot-blowers have taken 18 months in total. As a result, a stable boiler operation has been achieved, and the inter-cleaning period has increased up to 6 months. The positive economic result (estimated to RUR 230 mln) could be achieved through the decrease in fuel cost, the reduction of the stack gases temperature by 15 degrees, the reduction in the cleaning cost and due to the additional effect at the power and energy market related to the reduction of the energy limits for the unit.

Dmitry Kochergin, Engineer of COTES Engineering, has made a report titled “Experience of Implementing a COTES Black Oil-Free Ignition System” and has told us about the trend of shifting away from black oil, current and promising facilities for implementation as well as about the obtained results. Black oil is one of the “dirtiest” fuels in power energy in terms of atmospheric emissions during burning. Moreover, it is also one of the most expensive fuel with its quality getting increasingly lower along with the oil refinery efficiency. Many stations are looking for methods to avoid using the expensive and complex black oil equipment and to find other “illumination” methods as well as burning and reserve fuels.

COTES has been developing an electroionization technology for coal fuel ignition for over 10 years under the leadership of Dr.Sc. (Eng.) Felix Serant. The development of a new black oil-free burning technology that does not require a high-energy power source and is oriented towards burning stabilization for the coal-dust fuel has been successfully trialled in the 5 MW fire test fixture in Novosibirsk, at the Krasnoyarsk GRES-2, and at the Novosibirsk CHPP-3. A preparation for the trials of the black oil-free ignition system for lignite coals is being performed in the Kostolac-B station in Serbia. For many years of operation, we could achieve the efficient ignition of the coal dust and its minimum loss before the flare ignition. The conducted trials have demonstrated that the system is reliable, stable, has no pulsation and flare loss. The system is equipped with automation that monitors the burning safety.

The reports of both speakers have raised interest in the audience who actively asked questions. The conference experts assisted in answering them by joining the webinar and also could comment. The experts of the first Knowledge Day included:

• Felix Serant, Dr.Sc. (Eng.), Laureate of the RF Government Award, the well-known specialist in boiler equipment.
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• Andrey Kalachev, Director General of OOO “PCV”, the leader of the Fenix Consortium, the expert of the Energy Committee of the RF State Duma, the expert of the Public Council of the RF Ministry of Natural Resource, the member of the Scintific and Technical Council of the RF Rosprirodnadzor.
• Anatoly Lovtsov, Cand.Sc. (Eng.), Deputy Director General for Design at OOO “COTES Engineering”. His experience in power industry takes more than 40 years.
• Evgeny Kruglov, Sales Director in Russia and the CIS at Clyde Bergemann.

The next Knowledge Day will be held on December 3. We will announce the subject and speakers soon. Please follow our announcements in the Knowledge Days / Announcement page.