Rick Sergel, President and CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), recently explained how with a projected 20 percent growth in electricity demand over the next 10 years, we will need every resource in our arsenal to meet the growing energy demand.

 

“Frankly, we are at the point where we must consider how to meet our obligations and maintain reliability without all the infrastructure we need – we simply don’t have enough time to solve many of our ‘issues,’ rather we must learn how to manage them.”

 

Managing the issues and making incremental improvements as we continue to rely on existing coal-fired plants is probably where we’ll see ourselves at least for the next few years. Not surprisingly older coal-fired generators are looking for ways to improve plant performance and lower emissions. Among their most promising options are relatively low-cost optimization solutions. Collectively, optimization solutions for soot, combustion, maintenance and performance can improve heat rate by roughly 2.5 percent, which results in less coal consumption and lower emissions. For example, each ton of coal burned generates roughly 2.75 tons of CO₂. That means that a 2.5 percent heat rate improvement at a 350 MW plant burning 1.7 million tons of coal each year will avoid approximately 108,000 tons of CO2.

 

“Every incremental heat rate improvement will count, since that means less tons of NOx, SOx, Hg, and CO₂,” said Kandi Forte, Director of Operational Excellence at Mirant.

 

For at least the foreseeable future we will continue relying on older coal-fired plants as a key “resource in our arsenal.” Collective improvements from optimization add up, and can be instrumental in continuing to meet the nation’s energy supply while balancing economic and environmental obligations.

www.theoptimizationblog.com

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