The field visit was held on on 15 th of September 2015 to the norochcholai which is a coal thermal power

plant. This report corresponding to the basic information of the power plant, operation procedure ,and
main systems of the powr plant informatively.
Introduction
The first and only coal power plant in sri lanka Lakvijaya power plant known as Norochcholai coal power
plant which is situated in the Norochcholai area in puttalam is one of the major contributor in providing
the electricity demand in Sri Lanka. The construction of the plant was done in 3 separate stages; each
contained generating capacity of 300MW. Construction of the first phase of the facility began on 11 May
2006 and commissioned the first phase on 22 March 2011, with 300-megawatt power generation capacity
stating its name as the first coal power plant in Sri Lanka. According to the Ceylon Electricity Board,
the US$455 million first phase generates nearly 1.7 TWh of electricity annually. The plant is connected to
the grid via 115 km (71 mi) 220-kilovolt transmission line to Veyangoda.
The power plant is now contributing about 900MW of electricity to the natonal system which
corresponding to supplying mostly the base load. In addition to norochcholai veyangoda line 220 kV line
ois installed noocholai to new Anuradhapura for the full utilixation of the power plant.
Conversion of coal into electricity
Although the main fuel is bituminous coal, at the start up and shut down auto diesel is used in the
boilers. For the operation purposes coal is prepares in particular order before supplying t the boilers. Coal
is first milled to a powder to increase the surface area and allows it to burn more quickly. In the
pulverized coal combustion (PCC) system, the powdered coal is used.
Then powdered coal is blown into the combustion chamber of a boiler and there it is burnt at high
temperature. The hot gases and heat energy produced converts water into steam. Then the high pressure
steam is passed into a turbine containing thousands of propeller-like blades. The steam pushes these
blades causing the turbine shaft to rotate at high speed. A generator is mounted at one end of the turbine
shaft. Then electricity is generated when these are rapidly rotated in a strong magnetic field. After passing
through the turbine, the steam is condensed and returned to the boiler to be heated once again. Typically
coal fired power plant has the processes mentioned above.

Main parts of the power plant

1. Boiler
This is the most important part of the power plant and there are several methods are used to increase the
boiler efficiency and reduced air pollution. This boiler is the largest boiler in the Sri Lanka that has
1025t/h capacity. This boiler is manufactured by Harbin Boiler Company of China. The name of the
boiler is inverted u type natural circulation balance draft subcritical boiler. This boiler consists with
burners, super heaters, re heaters, economizer and air pre heater. Two induced draft fans are used to
maintain negative pressure inside boiler and it helps to flue gas to go out inside the boiler easily. Another
booster fan is also used to support this process. Burner has 5 coal layers and 3 oil layers.
The firing system in the furnace is called circular firing system. Temperature of the furnace is always
maintained below the 1200 C because it reduces NO x formation.
Turbine
Each unit contains a turbine rotating at 3000rpm and delivering 300 MW power. Each turbine is mainly
divided in to 3 parts. They are high pressure turbine, intermediate pressure turbine and low pressure
turbine. The high pressure turbine and intermediate pressure turbine are connected in same shaft but low
pressure turbine is connected in separately. From these, LP turbine is larger in size compared to the HP
turbine and IP turbines, because when the pressure of steam is reduced the volume of the steam is too gets
increase.

Generator
The turbine rotates 3000 rpm. It rotates the 300MW, two poles and cylindrical rotor generator. To reduce
the size of the generator, Hydrogen (having high thermal capacity) is used for cooling in the air gap
of the generator. The stator windings are cooled by de-ionized water. Generator is rated at 20kV,
10.19kA and 0.85pf. It has static excitation with slip rings and brushes, with a 3150kVA transformer.

Transformer and GIS

The 3 phase transformer is rated at 50Hz, 360MVA,
2428*1.25%/ 20kV, 10392 A, ANAN (30%)
/ONAF (60%) / ODAF (100%) and YN d1. Due to
ODAF cooling method, the transformer is considerably
smaller compared to ONAN/ONAF transformers. The
switchyard is a GIS, connecting the generator to
Veyangoda 220kV transmission line.

Main processes
Steam generation process
Water passes through the water walls of the furnace and goes to the boiler drum. At the boiler drum,
liquid water and steam is separated. The steam is sent to the super heaters to produce super heated steam.
A portion of liquid water is used for continuous blow down of the boiler drum and other portion is recirculated through the water walls of the boiler.
There is a steam loss because of the continuous blow down of the boiler drum. That loss is fixed by
feeding the makeup water to the drum. Makeup water is fed through the economizer. At the economizer
the flue gas is used to heat the makeup water. It increases the boiler efficiency.
Steam drum is one of the most important equipment which always highly protected as it is an essential
thing to generate high quality steam. Economizer is used to increase the financial benefit and efficiency of
the steam process. It recovers the heat from flue gas and heat the feed water before enters to the boiler
drum.

Excitation system
At the start up, DC battery bank is used to provide excitation current. After starting the generator,
self-excitation method is used, using excitation transformer. 2500 A DC current is used as
excitation current and excitation voltage is 365 V.

Ash handling process

Flue gas contains considerable amount of fly ash. If it is directly released to the atmosphere, it can cause
serious damage to the plantation of the area. And also fly ash cause air pollution. Therefore fly ash is
removed from the flue gas before it released to the atmosphere in LVPS.
There are two main ways of depositing of ashes and corresponding ash removal methods as well.

1. Bottom ash system

After combustion of the coal, remaining residuals in the furnace is called bottom ash and this is
20% of the total ash produced by the combustion. When power plant runs in full load (300 MW)
total bottom ash production is approximately 2.5 tons/h. But, this value may be changed
according to the quality of coal. Submerged scraper conveyor belt system is used to collect
bottom ash from the furnace.
2. Fly ash system
Fly ashes are fine particles which are generated in the coal combustion and they rise with flue
gas. When plant runs in full load (300 MW), fly ash production of the plant is approximately
about 14.9 tons/h. If these fly ash mix with atmosphere then it will create a lot of environmental
problems. There is an especial mechanism used in the power plant to grab fly ash from the flue
gas. This is called electrostatic precipitator.

Cooling water system

Sea water are used at 17.5 m

/s, to cool the steam which is emitted from the turbine The steam

condensed as water is then sent to the boiler to generate steam again. Water which is only 4 Celsius

higher than the sea water is removed into the sea.