53 tph coal fired fluidised bed boiler report

The findings and recommendations have been collected and are now collated into the
following submissions for review and action:

Section A: Observations related to the Boiler & Recommended Actions related to the
Boiler
Section B: Observations & Recommendations related to maintenance & downtime
issues of ESP and Bag filters
Section C: Observations related to the Complete facility (Hi Strength Hypo Lmtd) with
regard to Emissions, compliance and reduction of down time, Fuel saving, Steam saving,
Water saving, Energy saving and overall improvement of the plants performance as to
energy and reliablliy,implementation of predictive maintenance and enhanced
monitoring. Very importantly also highlighted are very significant and major
vulnerabilities observed to the plants continuous functioning uninterrupted and
measures to safe guard against these vulnerabilities are recommended.

Each section is complete by itself as to the subject of the section, at the same time the 3
sections taken together form a comprehensive co- related overall plan of action, which
will vary significantly enhance the key aspects of the plants profitability and
dependability.

The series of measures are so classified and specified, such that they can be
implemented in a phased manner, each set of implemented measures generating
revenue, which will result in a quick RoI, as well as added revenue, which will fund the
next set of measures. Thus the funding becomes self generated and self sustaining,
while providing a significant surplus for future expansion.

Section A: Observations & Recommended Actions related to the Boiler

Combined observations of visiting personell,during the 3 visits:

1. Coal Sizing and percentage of fines more

2. O2 level variation in different areas of APH
3. APH corrosion and tube blockage
4. Unburnt fines carried over to ESP
5. loop seal issues
6. air leakage in various sections of ducting and economizer
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 7. insulation issues
8. Ducting design, fabrication and routing issues
9. Dearator issues
10. Water chemistry issues
11. levels of iron in bed ash unacceptable
12. Intermittent blow down being done manually
13. acoustic soot blowing instead of steam soot blowing
14. Coal crusher performance
15. moisture levels in coal
16. low overall efficiency of boiler by about 4% (GCV) as against optimum norm in
current similar boilers
17. Coal screening and high percentage of rejects which are resent to crusher
resulting in overload of crusher and departure from optimum performance
18. Entire draught system to be recalibrated and fine tuned and ducting
reengineered
19. high quantity of coal fines and powder found in vicinity of coal crusher house
and screening section and bunkers

NB: some of the observations have been more elaborately detailed in attached
observation report. Some are self explanatory and do not need further detailing.

Recommended Actions, prioritization of actions and impact of action

1. Steam soot blowing using non parasitic steam sourced from separate waste heat
generated source. Top priority. Acoustic soot blowing is having no impact on soot
deposition and the higher soot levels is resulting in loss of effciency.Impact of
introducing the steam soot blowing with separately sourced steam will be an
immediate efficiency gain of at least two percentage points (GCV) .This implies an
immediate very significant fuel saving and an RoI to accomplish this of less than a
year.
2. Coal drying. A value of 20 % average moisture levels is highly unacceptable and
recovering this water after drying the coal is also attractive for the plant. Drying
the coal will immediately provide another minimum 2 % increase in efficiency
3. Adding a low power, low maintenance coal crushing system of low cost which
takes the rejects from the coal crusher (coal of more than 8 or 10 mm size) and
reduces it to required size. This takes load off the coal crusher, reduces power
consumption and maintenance very significantly and quickly converts coal to
required size. properly sized coal is a very important factor in fluidized boiler
efficiency.Also in case of coal crusher downtime a back up system is there.
4. Redesign,refabricate reinstall complete ducting system
5. Redo complete insulation system
6. Convert manually operated intermittency blow down to automated blow down
7. Rectify dip and riser and other issues of loop seal
8. Replace existing airpreheater with new airpreheater properly designed and
fabricated as per the boiler actual parameters of flue gas flow, specific heats of
flue gas and temperatures
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 NB: The above are rectification measures to immediately address the problems
that need troubleshooting and increase efficiency. We will now spell out some
measures for predictive maintenance ,monitoring and accurate determination of
key parameters like steam loss, erosion of pressure parts, metal temperature
profiles which will lead to anticipation and prevention of shut down due to
unanticipated events like tube failure etc.

1. Online real-time erosion and corrosion extent of tubes is possible with

very reliable, rugged low cost system. It gives the real time accurate tube
thinning rates due to erosion or corrosion (Sidel Supply)
2. Online real-time complete visual imaging of tube metal temperatures
(surface temps) overheating, hot spots and close detail of any refractory
failures and gas leakage in a graphic,visula display linked to screens is
highly recommended and being used to well in advance show issues of
temperature profile, circulation and potential tube failure due to
overheating. The visualization of the entire heat transfer surfaces of the
steam generator during operation is a highly effective means of avoiding
failure of any pressure part or refractories and associated elements (Sidel
supply)
3. Steam trap monitoring system. A very low cost, rugged and reliable
system of monitoring each individual steam trap and transmitting the
data from each trap to designated data storage and display system is
recommended. This system enables plant to accurately monitor and
control steam loss and extent of condensate removal from each trap and
thus arrive at accurate mass balance of steam losses and steam balance.
(Sidel supply)

Section B: Observations & Recommendations related to maintenance & downtime

issues of ESP and Bag filters

1. Both in the process section and the boiler section the particulate collection
equipment respectively the bag filters and the ESPs have issues that need to be
immediately addressed
2. In the process section, bags of the bag house filters need to be frequently
replced,the nozzle supply headers are frequently corroded, and the compressor
loads are heavy. Draft drops are high. All of these can be addressed by replacing
bag filters with RPCs of Sidel Design. The Design,MOC and operation of these
address all the problems of the bag filters
3. The ESPs are very expensive to maintain and downtimes for servicing are
unacceptably high as is the cost of spares and the power consumption and draft
drops. Again Sidel designed RPCs will address these issues. Complete details of
the RPCs are attached and compared with ESP and Bag Filters
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 4. The ROI of replacing all the bag house filters and the ESP with RPCs are less than
a year and the introduction of the RPCs can be done in a phased manner with
operation in parallel by using isolation damper and bypass ducting. The foot print
of the RPCs is also very small,and very low power consumption.

Section C: Observations related to the Complete facility (Hi Strength Hypo Lmtd) with
regard to Emissions, compliance and reduction of down time, Fuel saving, Steam saving,
Water saving, Energy saving and overall improvement of the plants performance as to
energy and reliablliy,implementation of predictive maintenance and enhanced
monitoring. Very importantly also highlighted are very significant and major
vulnerabilities observed to the plants continuous functioning uninterrupted and
measures to safe guard against these vulnerabilities are recommended.

1. Vulnerabilities: All process and power steam is being met from one single boiler.
In the eventuality of a shutdown of the boiler the loss of product in process and
related losses would be enormous. Given that the process steam requirement is
much less than the power requirement, and the process requirement is for low
pressure steam, an immediate introduction of a low pressure ,small boiler using
rejected fines and coal powder recovered from the adjoining areas of the coal
yard and crusher and screening sections will provide the complete process
steam requirement at very low cost and the entire high pressure steam can be
diverted to a condensing turbine resulting in huge cost efficiencies and
protection against loss of steam to process.
2. water is being entirely sourced from the river at huge pumping costs. The
vulnerability is that various antagonistic local bodies may restrict or hinder or
block water sourcing from the river as has happened to units elsewhere. water
self sufficiency is a must. water recovered from drying coal and also by
implementing biomethanation system which provides bio gas for DG sets and
huge water recovery from the exhaust will reduce water dependency and costs
very tremendously. Details of both systems are in attachments

3. Steam saving : the existing steam traps need to be replaced with venturi steam
traps which are maintenance free and have 20 years life and highest efficiency of
condensate removal without steam loss. Details attached
4. Pinch methodology audit needs to conducted. Pinch methodology audit is the
best recommended methodology to identify the accurate energy consumption
and losses under all heads of usage of a plant, and also finds low cost solutions to
achieving the best energy usage benchmark. it is low cost, best practice and best
return method of energy audit in totality.