Boiler Boiler or Steam generator helps to burn the coal and transfer the heat to water, thereby generating

steam at the required pressure and temperature. Coal is fed to the Raw Coal Bunkers that is sufficient to store one day requirement. Then, the coal is pulverised into a fine powder in the pulverisers or mills and carried away into the boiler by the hot air at 60 70 supplied by Primary Air Fans. The fuel/air mixture is fed in the four corners of the boiler in a corner fired boiler, in four or five elevations. For complete combustion of coal in the furnace, secondary air is supplied by the Forced Draft fans. Feed water is supplied to the boiler drum situated at the top of the boiler from the economiser which make use of the heat in flue gas to preheat the feed water to increase the boiler efficiency. Water converts into steam in the furnace area and the dry and saturated steam is collected in the top portion of the drum. The saturated steam is then superheated superheaters. The superheated steam is called main steam that leaves the boiler at rated pressure and temperature. Turbine Turbine is a high speed rotating machine that converts the kinetic energy and pressure energy of the steam into useful work. A turbine generally has three stages viz. High Pressure, Intermediate Pressure and Low Pressure. The main steam enters into HP turbine and after expansion in the turbine the pressure and temperature fall down. The main steam is returned to the boiler for reheating in the Reheater. The Hot Reheated steam is admitted in the intermediate pressure turbine IPT after expansion in the IPT, steam enters into the Low pressure turbine. When the useful work is extracted from the steam, the pressure falls below the atmospheric pressure. Vacuum is maintained in the condenser to create steam flow by means of vacuum pump or steam jet ejectors. Cooling Water flows in the tubes of condenser to cool the steam. The condensate is pumped to the deaerator by condensate extraction pump (CEP) through Low Pressure Heaters where the temperature gain in the condensate is achieved from the heat of extraction steam from the turbine. The deaerator helps to remove the oxygen in the feed water as dissolved oxygen enhances corrosive action. The feed water from deaerator is pumped to the boiler drum, by Boiler Feed Pump (BFP) through HP heaters and economiser. Boiler Feed Pump is the heart of a thermal power station as it supplies feed water to the boiler continuously. Handling of Fly Ash After complete combustion of coal in the furnace, the heat in the flue gas is utilised to preheat the water in the economiser and primary and secondary air in airpreheaters. The fly ash laden gas is evacuated through chimney by Induced Draft fans through Electro Static

Precipitators (ESP). Electro Static Precipitators are devices that separate fly ash from the flue gas and thus Solid Particulate Matter in the exit gas is controlled. Apart from fly ash, bottom ash is also collected in the bottom of the furnace and is disposed off in the form of ash slurry in ash dyke. The hot water discharge from condenser is cooled in cooling towers of Natural Draft or Induced Draft type in closed circuit cooling system. In open circuit cooling system, the hot water is discharged into sea or perennial river in such a way that it does not affect the flora / fauna of the ecosystem. Cooling Water Pumps (CW pumps) pump the cold water stream back to the condenser

Steam turbines

Steam turbines have been used predominantly as prime mover in all thermal power stations. The steam turbines are mainly divided into two groups: 1. Impulse turbine 2. Impulse-reaction turbine The turbine generator consists of a series of steam turbines interconnected to each other and a generator on a common shaft. There is a high pressure turbine at one end, followed by an intermediate pressure turbine, two low pressure turbines, and the generator. The steam at high temperature (536 c to 540 c) and pressure (140 to 170 kg/cm2) is expanded in the turbine.

Economiser

It is located below the LPSH in the boiler and above pre heater. It is there to improve the efficiency of boiler by extracting heat from flue gases to heat water and send it to boiler drum. Advantages of Economiser include 1) Fuel economy: used to save fuel and increase overall efficiency of boiler plant. 2) Reducing size of boiler: as the feed water is preheated in the economiser and enter boiler tube at elevated temperature. The heat transfer area required for evaporation reduced considerably.

Air Preheater

The heat carried out with the flue gases coming out of economiser are further utilized for preheating the air before supplying to the combustion chamber. It is a necessary equipment for supply of hot air for drying the coal in pulverized fuel systems to facilitate grinding and satisfactory combustion of fuel in the furnace

Reheater

Power plant furnaces may have a reheater section containing tubes heated by hot flue gases outside the tubes. Exhaust steam from the high pressure turbine is rerouted to go inside the reheater tubes to pickup more energy to go drive intermediate or lower pressure turbines.

Furnaces
This crushed coal is taken away to the furnace through coal pipes with the help of hot and cold air mixture from P.A Fan. P.A Fan takes atmospheric air, a part of which is sent to Air preheaters for heating while a part goes directly to the mill for temperature control. Atmospheric air from F.D Fan is heated in the air heaters and sent to the furnace as combustion air.

Replacing coal boilers with nuclear heated boilers.

(The high temperature (1,300F molten salt reactors are far better suited for coal replacement applications than are the older, far less fuel efficient, and cooler common reactors. The BN-800 mentioned here is a commercial Russian product. The EBASCO was designed but never built.) COAL 1,300F MOLTEN SALT REACTOR (MSR) EBASCO 1,000 MWe J-Column Loeffler emulator Superheated 2,524 1,005 (336F superheat) 669 1,005 (455F from 550F) 1,460 1,318 1.529 0.305 3.277 0.673 910F FAST REACTOR (IFR) Rosatom BN800 880 MWe J-Column Loeffler emulator Superheated 2,524 910 (241F superheat) 669 910 (360F from 550F) WATER COOLED REACTOR Conventional PWR reactor Supercritical Primary Loop Subcooled

Taichung's 550 MWe GE Turbine Boiler Steam Type Pressure (psia) Temperature (F) Sat. Temperature (F) Reheat Temperature (F) Enthalpy (Btu/lbm) Internal Energy (Btu/lbm) Entropy (Btu/lbmF) Specific Volume (ft3/lbm) Density (lbm/ft3) Cp (Btu/lbm-F) Loeffler Superheated 2,524 1,005 (336F superheat) 669 1,005 (455F from 550F) 1,460 1,318 1.529 0.305 3.277 0.673

900 530 532 None 524 520 0.725 0.021 47.231 1.249

1,393 1,266 1.48 0.272 2.678 0.745

These steam values are conventional sub-critical superheated steam technology. According to the IEA, supercritical status for hard coal plants is defined as achieving outlet steam temperatures of 540-566

C (1,000-1,050 F) and a pressure of 250 bar (3,600 psi). Ultra-supercritical units are defined as those with outlet steam temperatures above 590 C (1,100F) and pressures above 250 bar (3,600 psi). Supercritical and ultrasupercritical plants can achieve efficiencies of over 45%; conventional sub-critical superheated steam plants rarely achieve thermal efficiencies of 40%. Very few new large power plants are being built for anything other than the more efficient 1,050F supercritical steam. At 1,300F, the thorium molten salt reactor has a long future.