Electrical Power Generation

1 Introduction

Power generation (in this context, electricity generation) is the

process of generating electric power from sources of primary
energy, such as fossil fuels.
Electricity must be produced from other forms of energy in
power plants (also called power stations).
Electricity is most often generated at a power plant by
electromagnetic generators, primarily driven by heat engines
fueled by combustion or nuclear fission but also by other
means such as the kinetic energy of flowing water and wind.
Other energy sources include solar photovoltaics and
geothermal power.
The production of electric power by the combustion of coal is a
mature and well established technology in the industrialized
countries of the world.
Put simply, coal-fired power plants produce electricity by
burning coal in a boiler to produce steam which, under high
pressure, flows into a turbine, which spins a generator to create
electricity. The steam is then cooled, condensed back into
water, and returned to the boiler to start the process over. Thus
 Coal Boiler Turbine Generator Electricity User

In fact, steam engines powered by coal boilers had been in use

since the end of the 17th century. A century later, the Scottish
inventor James Watt saw the potential in coal power. Watt took
a simple pumping system intended to remove water from mines
and adapted it to run machines in cotton, textile, paper, and
lumber mills throughout England during the late 18th century.
(Referred to James G. Speight. Coal-Fired Power Generation
Handbook)

2 Electricity from Coal

Coal is a reliable, mature technology, and is well understood by

the traditional producers of electricity. However, not all kinds of
coal types are applicable to the coal-fired power plants.
Coal is characterized by many properties such as total calorific
value, volatile portions, degree of coalification, and the
chemical composition of the fly ash.

These properties are available in advance by application of

appropriate screening of the coal types by use of coal and fly
ash properties (Speight, 2013, 2015).
2.1 Conventional Power Plant

A conventional coal-fired power plant produces electricity by

burning coal in a steam generator, where it heats water to
produce high-pressure and high-temperature steam. The steam
flows through a series of steam turbines which spin an
electrical generator to produce electricity. The exhaust steam
from the turbines is cooled, condensed back into water, and
returned to the steam generator to start the process over.
Conventional coal-fired power plants are complex and custom
designed on a large scale for continuous operation 24 hours
per day and 365 days per year.

Most plants built in the 1980s and early 1990s produce

approximately 500 MW of power, while many of the modern
plants produce approximately 1000 MW.

2.1.1 Coal Transportation

Coal is delivered by highway truck, rail, barge, or collier ship.

Some plants are even built near coal mines and the coal is
delivered from the mines by conveyors or multi hundred-ton
trucks.
A large coal train (unit train) composed of 100 to 110 rail cars –
each car containing 100 tons of coal – may be more than one
mile long.
A large plant under full load requires at least one coal delivery
this size every day.
Plants may get as many as three to five trains a day, especially
in peak season.
Unloading a unit train takes approximately three hours.