December 2016 - FGD and DeNOx Insights 72

New Approach Allows Suppliers to Reach 50 percent of the World’s Power Generation Market

Large utilities are expanding through merger and acquisition. As a result, 100 power generators around the world buy more than 50 percent of the products and services. These operators are expanding into wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and other renewable fuels. They have distributed generation initiatives. Many are making major investments to meet new environmental regulatory requirements. There are thousands of challenging decisions which have to be made. A new program is creating a unique path for decision makers to combine the hurry-up habits of the IPhone and Facebook with the wisdom of “wise crowd” decisions. The program for the first utility is now available.

Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE) includes PacifiCorp, NV Energy, Mid-American, BHE Renewables, Northern and Kern River Pipeline. The two pipeline companies transport 7 percent of the natural gas in the U.S. The power companies operate coal, gas, hydro, solar, geothermal, biomass, wind and other renewables generators.

McIlvaine now has Berkshire Hathaway Energy Supplier and Utility Connect to be used by suppliers as well as BHE personnel. It has details on every one of the hundreds of power generators within the system. It fulfills the 4 knowledge needs: Alerts, Answers, Analysis and Advancement. It combines 44I Power Plant Air Quality Decisions (Power Plant Decisions Orchard) and 59D Gas Turbine and Reciprocating Engine Decisions with the custom BHE program. This includes interfacing with hundreds of BHE people indirectly through the Alerts, case histories, etc., and directly through large and small webinars.

Function

Customer
Plant
Location

Applications

Processes

Products

Sales

Service

Engineering

Manufacturing

Consulting

Resource planning

Regulatory

Automation

Operations

Plant design

WA, OR, UT, WY, IA and non-regulated in many states and the Philippines

Coal

Wind

Biomass

Energy Recovery

Gas

Hydro

Geothermal

Gas Transmission

Water

Intake

Cooling

Ultrapure

Water

Ground Water

Gas Pipeline

Gas Storage

Compressor Station

Steam

Combustion

Wastewater

Fire Protection

Lubrication

Heat Recovery

FGD

Solid Waste

Solid Handling

The website has constantly updated data on each power generation, energy recovery and gas storage and transmission system operated by BHE. It also has details on all the larger industrial facilities in Iowa and the western states where BHE has electricity delivery. It includes all the facilities owned by BHE Renewables. Information on the compressor stations and power generators also includes the air permits with detailed regulatory information.

The coal-fired power plant information includes details on the furnaces, burners, coal size reduction, ID fans, heat recovery steam generators, SCR, particulate control, FGD, wastewater, ash disposal and instrumentation.

The gas turbine data includes details on the gas and steam turbines, inlet air systems, emission control systems, HRSGs and water and wastewater treatment.

The Alerts, webinars and other communication tools provided to suppliers assure an audience at power plants around the world.

New Approach allows Subscribers to Reach the Summit of the Mountain of Information on Coal-fired Boilers

The available information on combustion, flow control, treatment and environmental compliance for coal-fired power plants is doubling every few years. Finding the most current and relevant information is now more challenging than climbing Mt. Everest.

The four knowledge needs are Alerts, Answers, Analysis, and Advancement. These needs are served in a number of unique ways in McIlvaine’s PPAQD Coal-fired Power Plant Decisions. The system is free of charge to any power plant in the world. This wide reach makes it very important to suppliers who add considerable value with their input.

Answers: The intelligence system includes thousands of pages of papers, articles and power point presentations. The coverage is international. Many developments in one country are not known in other countries. A system used by power plant owners and suppliers in all countries assures better information exchange.

Analysis: There are regularly scheduled webinars. Hundreds of hours of recorded webinars can be immediately retrieved. A number of LinkedIn discussion groups have been created. They include individual air pollution control technologies such as fabric filtration and dry scrubbing. There are separate groups covering each component e.g. valve, instrumentation and groups organized around processes such as coal combustion residues and wastewater treatment.

The webinars provide ways to aggregate and analyze the data being added in the LinkedIn discussion groups. The intelligence system provides the foundation for discussion group participants.

One of the primary goals is to make it easier for power plants to make total cost of ownership analyses at reasonable cost. The system includes white papers and identifies experts who can make contributions.

Advancement: The recorded webinars and the intelligence system are very valuable as training tools. They can be utilized for basic training or keeping the most senior people current with new developments.

China is winding up an SCR retrofit program for coal-fired boilers which, in some recent years, generated SCR system purchases of over $7 billion. As a result of the disappearance of a big retrofit market, the investment in new SCR systems will hover at under $8 billion/yr. over the next few years. Coal-fired generators will still represent the largest purchasing segment followed by gas turbines. The markets for NO_x control for reciprocating engine and industrial segments will be growing, but is relatively small by comparison. The sales of catalyst have also been volatile due to the large initial need in the Chinese plants. In fact, the peak in 2014 will not be surpassed until 2021. The one market showing steady increase is reagents. The market for urea and ammonia will exceed $3 billion in 2017 and rise to over $3.4 billion in 2021.

There are some variables which need to be considered in making long-range forecasts:

· Catalytic filters could capture significant market share. When catalyst is embedded in ceramic or fiberglass media both dust and NO_x can be reduced. When a powdered sorbent is injected ahead of the catalytic filter, acid gases can also be captured. At the very least this development can change market approaches for catalyst suppliers. It is also likely to change market share. Haldor Topsoe is a leader with a ceramic catalytic filter and collaborates with FLSmidth to provide the fiberglass embedded version.

o Expanding market for stationary reciprocating engine NO_x control. This growth could be accelerated by:

o Distributed generation with emergency generators being used in standby service. The greater use will necessitate NO_x control in most cases.

Coal-fired power plants will spend $10 billion/yr. to remove SO₂ over the next few years. This includes the capital investment, repair, replacement and consumables. The capital investment will be lower than at a peak in 2010 but the other segments continue to grow. The various factors are continually assessed in McIlvaine’s N027 FGD Market and Strategies.

Flue gas desulfurization (FGD) is a term used to describe SO₂ removal from coal-fired power plants. The U.S. will continue to operate more than 200,000 MW of FGD systems, but will not build new coal-fired power plants. China already operates four times as many coal-fired power plants as the U.S. and will continue to build more but at a reduced rate. The big variable is the use of FGD for coal-fired power plants in India, Vietnam and Indonesia. There are new SO₂ regulations in India. The limits vary by age and size of the boiler. Power plants in coastal areas are likely to use seawater as the scrubbing liquor. This approach reduces capital cost and eliminates the costly lime or limestone.

Another variable is the type of FGD which will be employed. Dry FGD necessitates purchase of lime or sodium. These reagents are much costlier than limestone. But dry FGD requires much less capital investment than wet limestone. India suffers from lack of water and is likely to lean toward the dry methods. On the other hand, the wet limestone results in salable gypsum while dry FGD results in a waste which must be landfilled or converted to low value construction products. One option is a two-stage scrubbing system which results in both sulfuric and hydrochloric acid byproducts. This design also has the potential to separate rare earths at a much lower cost than the methods being researched by the USDOE and the Chinese government.

There is a large and growing market to maintain and operate FGD systems. Remote monitoring allows a vendor to cost effectively support operations thousands of miles away.

The 41F Utility E-Alert is issued weekly and covers the coal-fired projects, regulations and other information important to the suppliers. It is $950/yr. but is included in the $3020 42EI Utility Tracking System which has data on every plant and project plus networking directories and many other features.