Power Air Quality Insights No

Power Air Quality Insights
No. 78 October 18, 2012

WELCOME

The following insights can be sent to you every week. This alert contains the details on the upcoming hot topic hour, breaking news, and the headlines for the Utility E Alert for the previous week. This is one of a number of free services. You can sign up for any of these newsletters and of course request to be removed from the mailing list at any time. See registration following the newsletter.

· “Instrumentation for Air, Gas, Water, Liquids (forecasts, market shares and growth segments)” “Hot Topic Hour” on October 25, 2012

“Instrumentation for Air, Gas, Water, Liquids (forecasts, market shares and growth segments)” is “Hot Topic Hour” on October 25, 2012

Markets for air and water instrumentation in the power industry is the hot topic for October 25, 2012. The $1.7 billion annual market for air and water monitoring and control instrumentation in power plants will be analyzed and opportunities discussed in the McIlvaine Hot Topic Hour at 10 a.m. (Central time) on October 25^th.

Air and water monitoring revenues include sales of laboratory, continuous and portable instruments and systems. These include process gases and liquids as well as exhaust gases and liquid waste streams. The values reported include physical properties such as flow and temperature as well as chemical constituents such as ammonia or cadmium.

Power is the largest industrial user of air and water monitoring equipment. These plants extract more water than any other industry and discharge more gases to the atmosphere than all the other industries combined. Process gas instrumentation includes measurement of oxygen, carbon monoxide, temperature and flow. It also includes related measurements such as fuel flow.

Laboratory equipment is also included. Often a solid e.g. filter catch is measured to determine the constituents in the air or gas. Where the analysis of the raw material is necessary for pollution control purposes, this is also included. Many regulations affecting pollution control in coal-fired power plants require measuring the sulfur or mercury in the coal being burned. In the cement industry, the metals are measured in the limestone feed as well as in the stack gas.

The power industry in Asia is investing more than the rest of the world combined in boosting electrical capacity. The trend is away from laboratory testing and towards continuous monitoring.

Market shares and strength of major players will be also reviewed. Thermo Fisher is the largest supplier of air and water monitoring instrumentation to power plants. The company has aggressively expanded into the developing markets and even has its international air research center in China.

This session is free for subscribers, but is $400 for non-subscribers. However, this fee can then be applied to the Air and Water Monitoring Market report subscription.

On Thursday at 10 a.m. Central time, McIlvaine hosts a 90 minute web meeting on important energy and pollution control subjects. Power webinars are free for subscribers to either Power Plant Air Quality Decisions or Utility Environmental Upgrade Tracking System. The cost is $125.00 for non-subscribers.

	2012
DATE	SUBJECT
October 25	Instrumentation for air, gas, water, liquids (forecasts, market shares, growth segments).	Market Intelligence
November 1	Cooling Towers and Cooling Water Issues	Power
November 8	FGD Scrubber Components	Power
November 15	Dampers and Expansion Joints for Coal-fired and Gas Turbine Power Plants	Power
November 29	Catalyst Selection for NO_x and Other Gases	Power
December 6	Boiler Feed and Cooling Water Treatment	Power
December 13	Co-firing Sewage Sludge, Biomass and Municipal Waste	Power
	2013
January 10	Update on Oxy-fuel Combustion	Power
January 17	Production of Fertilizer and Sulfuric Acid at Coal-fired Power Plants	Power
January 24	Gypsum Dewatering	Power
January 31	Filter media (forecasts and market drivers for media used in air, gas, liquid, fluid applications, both mobile and stationary).	Market Intelligence
February 7	Valves for Power Plants, Boilers and Water Treatment Facilities	Power

§ Ottumwa 726 MW Power Plant will be upgraded by B&W and Burns & McDonnell

§ Breen Energy Solutions wins Sorbent Injection Contracts

§ Tokyo Gas and Showa Shell to add Gas-fired Unit at Ohgishima Power Plant

§ TNB wins Bid to develop Combined Cycle Power Plant in Prai, Penang, Malaysia

§ Wärtsilä-led Consortium awarded Contract to build 573 MW Tri-fuel Power Plant in Jordan

§ ABB wins $65 Million in Orders in support of Gas-fired Power Plants in Iraq

§ Shell (Philippines) to supply Meralco’s 1,200 Gas-fired Power Plant with Liquefied Natural Gas

Suppliers of hardware and consumables to reduce mercury from stack gases will benefit from a world market which will grow over the next decade from less than $200 million/yr to over $1 billion/yr. This is the prediction in the McIlvaine Mercury Air Reduction Markets. (www.mcilvainecompany.com)

The market for mercury control for waste-to-energy plants is growing steadily and there are few variables which could drastically alter the forecasts. However, the waste-to-energy market is small in comparison to the power plant market. This market is much more difficult to predict.

The market for mercury control in coal-fired power plants is subject to major variables including:

Timing: Some U.S. power plants are already reducing mercury emissions based on state regulations and on a federal subsidy for refined coal. Regulations requiring mercury reduction by all power plants has been promulgated, but there are some delays in implementation. Similar regulations have also been promulgated for industrial boilers and cement plants. But they are also subject to some uncertainties.

Regulations in other countries are under consideration, but none have as yet promulgated regulations which would require extensive mercury reduction.

Approach: The technology envisioned by U.S. EPA is primarily activated carbon injection combined with fabric filters. This would entail a capital investment for U.S. utilities, industrial boilers and cement plants of over $1 billion. It would also require annual activated carbon purchases of more than $600 million. In anticipation of this large market for activated carbon a number of suppliers have increased capacity.

An alternative to this approach is the use of halogenated compounds to convert the mercury to a soluble form which can be captured in downstream scrubbers. This approach now appears to be sufficiently efficient and economical to be applied to many of the eastern bituminous coal-fired boilers.

Bromine has proven to be a better halogen than chorine for this application. There is now competition among three large bromine companies to capture a share of the market. The companies are ICl, Albemarle and Chemtura.

Chemtura has invested more than $22 million in recent years to optimize its bromine facilities in Arkansas. Chemtura also obtains bromine from a site near the Dead Sea in the Middle East.

Longer term, China could become the largest market for mercury reduction chemicals. This will create an import opportunity.The supply of bromine in China has declined significantly of late due to the faster than expected decline in manufacturing by Chinese companies.

Bromine manufacturing in China borders on economically unfeasible levels because the concentration of bromine fell from 0.3 grams per liter to 0.2-0.18 grams per liter, compared to 10-12 grams per liter in the Dead Sea.

Operators of dust collectors will spend $2.7 billion for bags and cartridges in 2013. Industries in East Asia will account for 44 percent of the total. This is the latest finding in World Fabric Filter and Element Market published by the McIlvaine Company. (www.mcilvainecompany.com)

World Region	2013
Africa	67
CIS	91
East Asia	1,233
Eastern Europe	63
Middle East	91
NAFTA	448
South & Central America	171
West Asia	182
Western Europe	361
Total	2,707

China will be a major purchaser of bags due to its large cement production. Cement plants are presently the largest users of bags. This is likely to change over the next few years as power plants switch from electrostatic precipitation to fabric filtration. Presently less than five percent of the coal-fired power plants in the world utilize fabric filters.

New power plant regulations in the U.S. will force many operators to switch to fabric filters to obtain the very low emission levels dictated by regulations to reduce air toxics such as cadmium and lead.

There are a number of developing technologies which will also impact the market. The trend toward cartridges instead of tubular bags will accelerate. The development of nano fibers will increasingly result in higher efficiencies for a given energy input. The use of membrane composites (membrane film on a non-woven substrate) will increase due to efficiency and cake release benefits.

The biggest potential change could come from the development of ceramic filter media which will allow dust separation at temperatures of 850^oF. The typical power plant uses an inefficient rotary heat exchanger in the dirty gas stream due to the lack of an option to reliably remove the dust at this high temperature. The ceramic filter will allow much more efficient heat exchange. Several companies are now offering ceramic filter media. Clear Edge has taken this development a step further with the introduction of a ceramic filter with imbedded catalyst to both remove dust and reduce NO_x. This combination device promises to substantially change the approach to air pollution control in power plants.

Large scale solar projects bring lots of jobs. McIlvaine’s Renewable Energy Projects and Update provides information on these projects.

CPS Energy and OCI Solar Power Launch Largest Municipality Owned Mega Solar Project in San Antonio, Bringing at Least 800 Jobs

A landmark deal signed in July by CPS Energy and OCI Solar Power will result in the construction of 400 MW of solar energy, bring several manufacturing facilities that produce solar panel components, and create 805 jobs in San Antonio.

CPS Energy President and CEO Doyle Beneby inked the contract with Tony Dorazio, president of OCI Solar Power, making the 25-year power purchase and economic development agreement official. This unique, first-of-its kind, manufacturing-to-generation contract follows several months of talks between negotiation teams with the utility and its most recent New Energy Economy partners. The 400 MW San Antonio project is the largest in the nation among municipal utilities, and will catapult Texas into the top five U.S. solar producing states.

Providing enough electricity for nearly 70,000 local households – or about 10 percent of San Antonio’s customers – the final deal also will deliver:

OCI Solar Power created a consortium of partners to deliver 400 MW of solar to CPS Energy throughout the 25-year life of the agreement. According to the contract, members of the OCI Solar Power consortium will build facilities in San Antonio to produce components for solar power generation such as modules, trackers and inverters used to supply the North American market. The anchor manufacturer in the consortium is Nexolon American LLC, a subsidiary of Nexolon, an established global leader in manufacturing components used in solar panels. Nexolon America LLC played a pivotal role in making the deal a success through its commitment to investing $100 million in building a high-tech manufacturing facility and locating its North American headquarters in San Antonio, in total creating over 400 jobs. All combined, the consortium’s efforts on this project will result in more than 800 long-term jobs in addition to the jobs that will be necessary to construct the manufacturing facilities and the solar energy plants.

NRG Energy, Inc., MidAmerican Solar and First Solar, Inc. announced that the 290 MW_AC Agua Caliente solar project, currently under construction in Yuma County, AZ, is more than two-thirds complete and delivering more than 200 MW to the electric grid. The Agua Caliente project is the world’s largest operating photovoltaic power plant.

The facility, which is owned by NRG and MidAmerican Solar, employs a daily average of 400 to 450 workers during the construction period. Expected to be completed in 2014, the project uses industry-leading solar plant controls and forecasting capabilities to integrate its output with the power grid. The Agua Caliente project is being financed with support from a loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office.

First Solar designed and is constructing the project using its advanced thin-film photovoltaic modules and will operate and maintain the facility for NRG and MidAmerican Solar. Pacific Gas and Electric Company has a long-term power purchase agreement for the project’s generation.

First Solar, Inc. announced it is developing the 139 MW_AC Campo Verde Solar Project, located near El Centro in Imperial County, CA.

Campo Verde is expected to start construction in the third quarter of 2012 and be completed in 2013, creating about 250 construction jobs. San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E) will purchase the project’s output under a 20-year power purchase agreement, which was approved on May 24, 2012 by the California Public Utilities Commission.

First Solar will construct the project using its advanced thin film PV modules that generate clean, renewable energy with no emissions, waste or water consumption during operation. The project will generate enough electricity to power approximately 50,000 average California homes, displacing 80,000 metric tons of CO₂ per year, the equivalent of taking 15,000 cars off the road.

The Campo Verde project is jointly owned by First Solar and U.S. Solar Holdings LLC, but First Solar has contractual rights to acquire 100 percent ownership interest and is in the process of completing its acquisition.

§ Breen Energy Solutions wins Sorbent Injection Contracts

§ TNB wins Bid to develop Combined Cycle Power Plant in Prai, Penang, Malaysia

§ Wärtsilä-led Consortium awarded Contract to build 573 MW Tri-fuel Power Plant in Jordan