COGENERATIVE SYSTEM TO IMPROVE THE PERFORMANCE IN SUGAR INDUSTRIES

By,
Divya P S Harish S

Cogeneration ?

What is

Cogeneration (also combined heat and power, CHP) is the use of a heat engine or a power station to simultaneously generate both electricity and useful heat.

All thermal power plants emit a certain amount of heat during electricity generation.

This can be released into the natural

environment through cooling towers, flue gas, or by other means.

 By contrast, CHP captures some or all of the byproduct heat for heating purposes, either very close to the plant, or hot water for district heating with

temperatures ranging from approximately 80 to

130 C. This is also called Combined Heat and Power District Heating or CHPDH.

By-product heat at moderate temperatures (212356F/100-180C) can also be used in absorption chillers for cooling. A plant producing electricity, heat and cold is sometimes called trigeneration or more generally

polygeneration plant.

Cogeneration is a thermodynamically efficient use of

fuel. In separate production of electricity, some energy must be rejected as waste heat, but in cogeneration this thermal energy is put to good use. Cogeneration is still common in pulp and paper mills,

refineries and chemical plants.

What is the need for Cogeneration in Sugar Industries ?

 Sugarcane is an Energy Crop and contains about 4500 MJ energy per ton cane in which about 1800 MJ is lost in the boiler flue gas and about 750 MJ heat energy is

dissipated to atmosphere through the cooling tower / spray pond.

Energy spend for the production of sugar is about three times of energy in sugar.

 Agro-waste and agro industrial products have today been recognized as modern bio-mass material which can be converted directly into useful forms

of energy.
Bio-mass has the crucial advantage of being environment friendly.

 Bagasse is a captive bio-mass.

In India, there are 478 sugar mills of varying crushing capacity ranging from a critical period because of over-production, low sugar price, low international market,

etc., can enhance revenue by co -generation.

So Co-Generation would benefit both the nation and the industry.

 The energy requirements in a sugar mill are in the form of steam for process heating/turbo drives and electricity for running various drives.

The sugar industry has the unique advantage of utilizing a captive fuelbagasse, to meet its energy requirements.

 However, depending upon various factors like fibre content in the cane, quantity of juice, type of clarification process and evaporation effects, type of

prime movers (steam driven or electric driven) etc., some sugar mills
produce a small quantity of surplus bagasse while others are deficient by a small quantity.

 These mills, therefore, have to depend in a very limited way on external fuels like fuel oil, coal etc. to supplement their energy requirements.

Likewise, some sugar mills during the season can produce a little surplus power
while others would be deficient in power by a small margin and hence the dependence on grid power is minimal.

 The major reason for the high energy consumption in the industry is the presence

of large number of old small capacity sugar mills which have not invested much over
the years in modernizing or upgrading various process equipment. Apart from improving the end use efficiency in the plants, the other most promising energy conservation measure for the industry is to set up high-pressure cogeneration systems.

Ways of Cogeneration in Sugar Industries

Steam Engine/ Steam Turbine based

Gas Turbine based

Reciprocating Engine Generator based

Convention vs. Cogeneration

In a conventional power plant, fuel is burnt in a boiler to generate high-pressure steam which is used to drive a

turbine, which in turn drives an alternator through a

steam turbine to produce electrical power. The exhaust steam is generally condensed to water which goes back to the boiler.

 As the low-pressure steam has a large quantum of heat which is

lost in the process of condensing, the efficiency of conventional

power plants is only around 35%. In a cogeneration plant, very high efficiency levels, in the range of 75%90%, can be reached, because the low-pressure exhaust steam coming out of the turbine is not condensed, but used for heating purposes in factories or houses.

References
http://eeii.org.in/index.php?option=content&task=viewtheme&sid=72&Itemid=43 http://www.tesplcogen.com/cogeneration-systems-for-sugar-industry.html http://www.winrock.org/Clean_Energy/files/Advancing_cogeneration.pdf http://nopr.niscair.res.in/bitstream/123456789/773/1/JSIR%2067%283%29%20%282008%29% 20239-242.pdf http://cdm.unfccc.int/Projects/DB/SGSUKL1200599187.35/ReviewInitialComments/0EHRTI99IZO2F5EQWTHOTGXDFEKW14 http://www.princeton.edu/pei/energy/publications/texts/International-Sugar-Journal.pdf http://www.indiansugar.com/Cogeneration.aspx http://www.indiansugar.com/PDFS/Cogenerators.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org