Thermal Power Plants:

Site Selection:

1. Transmission of Energy: Power station should be located as near the load centre as
possible. This reduces the transmission cost and losses in transmission.
2. Transport of fuel: (Road, Rail, Water transport) The site should be so selected that
coal can be transported to easily from mines to the plant. Coal mines usually away
from the load centers, so that two alternatives are necessary to compare, as locating
the plant near the coal pits and transmitting electricity through high voltage lines or
locating the plant near the load centre and transporting coal to the plants. Plant near
coal mines is called pit head plants.
3. Availability of water: There should be ample supply of water, which is required for
Boiler, cooling water for condenser.
4. Quality of Water: Quality of water also be considered. Hardness of water causes
corrosion and erosion on boiler tubes, condenser tubes etc. Hardness of water may be
removed by lime soda, ion-exchange softening plant or by use of heater and
evaporator.
5. Disposal of ash: 5000 tones of ash is produced daily by 2000 MW plant. Steam
stations produces huge amount of ash. A site whose ash can be disposed off easily
will naturally be advantageous.
6. Pollution and noise: A site near a load centre may be objectionable from the point of
view of noise and pollution.
7. Cost of land and taxes: Near big cities cost and taxes are higher and less for town
places.
8. Reliability: If location of plants are one side of a state, the reliability of supply in
remote area would be poor. Power station should be located in different area of the
state so that reliability of supply would be good at all points.

The main and auxiliary equipments in a thermal plant:

1) Coal handling plant
2) Pulverising plant.
3) Draft fans.
4) Boiler
 5) Ash handling plant
6) Turbines
7) Condenser
8) Cooling towers and ponds
9) Feed water heaters
10) Economizer
11) Super heater and pre-heater
12) Air pre-heater
13) Alternator with exciter
14) Protection and control equipment
15) Instrumentation

1) Coal Handling Plant:

Discharge Bay-1
Discharge Bay-2

Magnetic separator

1A 1B

Screens

1 2 Up to19 mm size
coal direct for
bunkering

Crusher's
1 2
To coal yard
Magnetic separator for stocking
Tippers
4
3
6
1 2 3
4 5 6
Coal bunkers
Boiler-1 Boiler-2 5
Main Sections:
(i) Arial Rope Way
(ii) Unloading plant: Wagon are placed in Tippler platform which is tilted by 1200 in
hoppers. This operation takes 03 minutes.
(iii) Conveying Plant: Belt conveyers are used i.e. 1A, 1B, 2, 3, 4,5, 6. No. 4 is
reversible.
(iv) Crushing Plant : Before charging to crushers, the coal is filtered to 19 mm size, to
reduce load on crushers which crushes the coal in to same size.
 In modern steam stations pulverized coal is used (pulverizing mills or bowl
mills are used for this purpose). Primary air fan blows pulverized coal into
boiler at 800 C temperature. Feeder feeds pulverized coal to the burners of
boiler.
 Coal from the hoppers is feed to the belt A or B by means of electric
vibrating feeders. Vibrating equipment is provided on the screens.
 A grate at the bottom of the furnace holds the fuel bed.
 In Koradi one unit of 210 MW requires 4000 tones of coal daily (Total
28000 tones of coal daily.

2) Pulverising Plant: Impact, Attrition, Crushing

 In modern plants Coal is ground to dust like size (called pulverized coal)
and carried to the furnace in a stream of hot air at 800 C.
 Pulverised coal exposed a large surface area to the action of oxygen
which helps in efficient burning of coal.
Advantages:
 Rate of combustion can be controlled and changed quickly to
meet the varying load.
 The banking losses are reduced.
 Air requirement is low
 Automatic combustion control can be used.
 Pre-heated air can be used successfully.
 A wide variety of even low grade coal can be used
  The boiler can be started from cold condition very rapidly
 The pulverizing equipment is outside the furnace. Therefore it
can be repaired without cooling down the unit.
 Even fine wet coal can be used provided the conveying
equipment can carry it to the pulverizing mill.
Disadvantages:
 Investment cost of plant is increased.
 Auxiliary power consumption of the plant is increased.
 A lot of extra equipment, mills, burners are required.
 The lower rows of boiler tubes get deposited with slag. Removal
of this slag needs special extra equipment.
Advantage overweigh Disadvantage, hence al modern plants used
pulverised coal

Unit System

Feeding of coal to furnace

Central System

Unit System : Each Boiler is feed separately by one or more pulverizers.

Central System : (Bin System) Coal is pulverized at a central plant and

distributed to all the boilers.
 3) Ash Handling Plant:
5% Ash is produced in good quality of coal
40% Ash is produced in poor quality of coal (Generally
used in India)

 2000MW plant produces 5000 tones of Ash daily

 Out of total Ash produced
 25% Furnace Bottom Ash  Inert
 75% Fly Ash  Acidic in nature, SO2

Sluicing System to transport Furnace Bottom Ash:

To remove furnace bottom ash high pressure water jets are used Ash is Jet sluiced
into sluice way (artificial water channel).
Sluicing system is generally used for removal of furnace bottom ash. Ash falls
into a dry hoppers which is fitted with access doors and high pressure water jets.
The collected ash is jet sluiced from the hopper into a sluice way and is carried by
water into a settling tank or for land filling.
By conveyors, trucks, wagons which transport it to the site of disposal
Pneumatic System to dispose-off Fly Ash:
Fly Ash is disposed-off by Pneumatic system. High Velocity air stream causes the
Ash to flow into separators where the Ash is collected into hoppers. Fly Ash is stored
into reinforced concrete bunkers of about 100 tone capacity.
Fly Ash is also being used for mixing with clay for making bricks

Good burning of coal produces CO2

Poor burning of coal produces CO (Carbon Mono-oxide)
4) Draft Fans:
Draft: Difference between pressure of Flue gases and Atmosphere
Combustion in the Boiler requires supply of sufficient quantity of Air and
removal of exhaust gases.
Flue Gas Flow diagram:

Mechanical Draft:

 Induced Draft : Blower is installed near Chimney. Burnt gases are

sucked out of Boiler. This induces fresh Air to enter the furnace,
which is necessary for burning of coal
 Forced Draft: Air is forced by blower (Fan). Blower is installed near
boiler.
 Balanced Draft uses both Induced and Forced Draft
 5) Condenser:
Condenser does condensing of steam exhausted from turbine. It helps in
maintaining low pressure at the exhaust. The exhaust steam is condensed and
used as feed water for the boiler.
 Maintenance of high vacuum in the condenser is essential for efficient
operation.
 A Vacuum pump is necessary to remove the air leaking into the
condenser.
Condenser Diagram:

Cooling water flows through the tubes. Steam comes into contact with this tubes and
gets condensed. For Efficient operation the temperature rise of cooling water
should be 100 C.
6) Cooling Towers and Ponds:
Diagram:

2000 MW Plant 1500x106 gallons/day of water for cooling

(Condenser)
7) Economiser:
Inlet flue gases passes through the economizer and heated the feed water to
the boiler, which saves the amount of fuel (coal).

8) Super Heater:
The steam supplied to the turbine is saturated. To increase the temperature
of steam it is passed through super-heater.
9) Air Pre-heater:
The Air is pre-heated in pre-heater by the Flue gases before they
leave chimney, so that some of their heat is used, which would
otherwise be wasted. This heated air is supplied to the furnace
instead of cold air, thus improving the heat balance.
Water Steam Flow diagram for Boiler Turbine unit:

Dearator:
A device in which Oxygen, carbon dioxide or their non-
condensable gases are removed from boiler feed water.
Oxygen may cause corrosion in steam systems. Oxygen may
also combine with dissolved carbon dioxide (CO2) to form
carbonic acid that causes further corrosion.