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INDUSTRIAL VISIT
TO
KOTHAGUDEM THERMAL
POWER PLANT
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CHAITANYA BHARATHI INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (AUTONOMOUS)

Accredited by NBA and NAAC, approved by A.I.C.T.E, affiliated to Osmania
University
GANDIPET, HYDERABAD 500075

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that this is a report done by C.NAGA BRAHMA of BE, EEE (3/4) on
industrial visit to KOTHAGUDEM Thermal Power Plant during the academic year
2018-2019.

Submitted To,
Mr.HARSHA,

INTERNAL GUIDE EXTERNAL GUIDE

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
S. no. Content page no
1. Title page 1
2. Certificate 2
3. List of contents 3
4. Acknowledgement 4
5. Introduction 5-7
6. Principal 8
7. Coal storage units 9 – 10
8. Boiler accessories 11 – 13
9. Types of turbines and feed pumps 14 – 16
10. Cooling tower and ash handling units 17 – 19
11. Advantages and Disadvantages 20 – 21
12. Conclusion 22
13. Questionnaire 23
14. Bibliography 25
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It is with the sense of great satisfaction and pride that I am sitting down to
pen my project report .On this day, we stand indebted to Mr. HARSHA,
Lecturer at CHAITANYA BHARATHI INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, Hyderabad
for his valuable advices, guidance and suggestions throughout the project
work which played a vital role in carrying out this project successfully. I am
thankful for his cooperation and help for successful completion of this
industrial visit.
I am profoundly thankful to Sri Mr. SURESH BABU, Head of EEE department,
for his dynamic invaluable technical guidance and constant encouragement,
without which I couldn’t have completed our project successfully. In this
context, I would like to thank all our staff members in Department of
Electrical Engineering, CHAITANYA BHARATHI INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,
for their constant encouragement in carrying out our project work.
I would like to thank our friends whose constant doubts and
suggestions inspired us throughout the course of the project.
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Introduction

At present 54.09% or 93918.38 MW (Data Source CEA, as on

31/03/2011) of total electricity production in India is from Coal Based
Thermal Power Station. A coal based thermal power plant converts the
chemical energy of the coal into electrical energy. This is achieved by
raising the steam in the boilers, expanding it through the turbine and
coupling the turbines to the generators which converts mechanical
energy into electrical energy.
In a coal based power plant coal is transported from coal mines
to the power plant by railway in wagons or in a merry-go-round
system. Coal is unloaded from the wagons to a moving underground
conveyor belt. This coal from the mines is of no uniform size. So it is
taken to the Crusher house and crushed to a size of 20mm. From the
crusher house the coal is either stored in dead storage( generally 40
days coal supply) which serves as coal supply in case of coal supply
bottleneck or to the live storage(8 hours coal supply) in the raw coal
bunker in the boiler house. Raw coal from the raw coal bunker is
supplied to the Coal Mills by a Raw Coal Feeder. The Coal Mills or
pulverizer pulverizes the coal to 200 mesh size. The powdered coal
from the coal mills is carried to the boiler in coal pipes by high
pressure hot air. The pulverized coal air mixture is burnt in the boiler
in the combustion zone.
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Generally in modern boilers tangential firing system is used i.e.

the coal nozzles/ guns form tangent to a circle. The temperature in fire
ball is of the order of 1300 deg.C. The boiler is a water tube boiler
hanging from the top. Water is converted to steam in the boiler and
steam is separated from water in the boiler Drum. The saturated steam
from the boiler drum is taken to the Low Temperature Superheater,
Platen Superheater and Final Superheater respectively for
superheating. The superheated steam from the final superheater is
taken to the High Pressure Steam Turbine (HPT). In the HPT the steam
pressure is utilized to rotate the turbine and the resultant is rotational
energy. From the HPT the out coming steam is taken to the preheater
in the boiler to increase its temperature as the steam becomes wet at
the HPT outlet. After reheating this steam is taken to the Intermediate
Pressure Turbine (IPT) and then to the Low Pressure Turbine (LPT). The
outlet of the LPT is sent to the condenser for condensing back to water
by a cooling water system. This condensed water is collected in the hot
well and is again sent to the boiler in a closed cycle. The rotational
energy imparted to the turbine by high pressure steam is converted to
electrical energy in the Generator.

KOTHAGUDEM Thermal Power Station is located at PALONCHA in

Telangana, India. The power plant has an installed capacity of 1,720 MW
with 11 units in operation (1*60MW(A station 3rd unit) unit under
permanent shut down).[1] It is one of the coal based power plants of
Telangana Power Generation Corporation Limited (TSGENCO)
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Unit Installed Date of

Stage Status
Number Capacity (MW) Commissioning

Stage I 1 60 04-07-1966 Running

Stage I 2 60 27-11-1966 Running

shut down permenantly due to

Stage II 3 60 27-05-1967
turbine problem

Stage II 4 60 08-07-1967 Running

Stage III 5 120 13-08-1974 Running

Stage III 6 120 19-12-1974 Running

Stage IV 7 120 10-03-1977 Running

Stage IV 8 120 10-01-1978 Running

Stage V 9 250 27-03-1997 Running

Stage V 10 250 28-02-1998 Running

Stage VI 11 500 06-26-2011 Running

Stage
12 800 19-05-2018 Running.
VII
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Diagram of a typical coal-fired thermal power station

Principal
Coal based thermal power plant works on the principal of Modified
Rankine Cycle.
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Components of Coal Fired Thermal Power Station:

COAL PREPARATION:
i. Fuel preparation system: In coal-fired power stations,
The raw feed coal from the coal storage area is first crushed into
small pieces and then conveyed to the coal feed hoppers at the
boilers. The coal is next pulverized into a very fine powder, so that
coal will undergo complete combustion during combustion process.
** Pulverizer is a mechanical device for the grinding of many different
types of materials. For example, they are used to pulverize coal for
combustion in the steam-generating furnaces of fossil fuel power
plants.
Types of Pulverizers: Ball and Tube mills; Ring and Ball mills; MPS; Ball
mill; Demolition.
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ii) Dryers: they are used in order to remove the excess moisture from
coal mainly wetted during transport. As the presence of moisture will
result in fall in efficiency due to incomplete combustion and also result
in CO emission.
iii) Magnetic separators: coal which is brought may contain iron
particles. These iron particles may result in wear and tear. The iron
particles may include bolts, nuts wire fish plates etc. so these are
unwanted and so are removed with the help of magnetic separators.
The coal we finally get after these above process are transferred to the
storage site.
Purpose of fuel storage is two –
Fuel storage is insurance from failure of normal operating supplies to
arrive.
Storage permits some choice of the date of purchase, allowing the
purchaser to take advantage of seasonal market conditions. Storage of
coal is primarily a matter of protection against the coal strikes, failure
of the transportation system & general coal shortages
There are two types of storage:
Live Storage (boiler room storage): storage from which coal may be
withdrawn to supply combustion equipment with little or no remanding
is live storage. This storage consists of about 24 to 30 hrs. Of coal
requirements of the plant and is usually a covered storage in the plant
near the boiler furnace. The live storage can be provided with bunkers &
coal bins. Bunkers are enough capacity to store the requisite of coal.
From bunkers coal is transferred to the boiler grates.
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Dead storage- stored for future use. Mainly it is for longer period of
time, and it is also mandatory to keep a backup of fuel for specified
amount of days depending on the reputation of the company and its
connectivity. There are many forms of storage some of which are –
Stacking the coal in heaps over available open ground areas.
As in (I). But placed under cover or alternatively in bunkers.
Allocating special areas & surrounding these with high reinforced
concerted retaking walls.
BOILER AND AUXILIARIES
A Boiler or steam generator essentially is a container into which water
can be fed and steam can be taken out at desired pressure,
temperature and flow. This calls for application of heat on the
container. For that the boiler should have a facility to burn a fuel and
release the heat. The functions of a boiler thus can be stated as:-
To convert chemical energy of the fuel into heat energy
To transfer this heat energy to water for evaporation as well as to steam
for superheating.
The basic components of Boiler are: -
Furnace and Burners
Steam and Superheating
a. Low temperature super heater
b. Platen super heater
c. Final super heater
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ECONOMIZER:
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 Economizer 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.
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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: -

IMPULSE TURBINE
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.

CONDENSER
The condenser condenses the steam from the exhaust of the turbine
into liquid to allow it to be pumped. If the condenser can be made
cooler, the pressure of the exhaust steam is reduced and efficiency of
the cycle increases.
1) To provide lowest economic heat rejection temperature for steam.
2) To convert exhaust steam to water for reserve thus saving on feed
water requirement.
3) To introduce make up water.
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We normally use surface condenser although there is one direct contact

condenser as well. In direct contact type exhaust steam is mixed with
directly with D.M cooling water.

BOILER FEED PUMP

Boiler feed pump is a multi-stage pump provided for pumping feed
water to economizer. BFP is the biggest auxiliary equipment after
Boiler and Turbine. It consumes about 4 to 5 % of total electricity
generation.

COOLING TOWER
The cooling tower is a semi-enclosed device for evaporative cooling of
water by contact with air. The hot water coming out from the
condenser is fed to the tower on the top and allowed to tickle in form
of thin sheets or drops. The air flows from bottom of the tower or
perpendicular to the direction of water flow and then exhausts to the
atmosphere after effective cooling.

The cooling towers are of four types: -

1. Natural Draft cooling tower
2. Forced Draft cooling tower
3. Induced Draft cooling tower
4. Balanced Draft cooling tower
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Fan or draught system

In a boiler it is essential to supply a controlled amount of air to the
furnace for effective combustion of fuel and to evacuate hot gases
formed in the furnace through the various heat transfer area of the
boiler. This can be done by using a chimney or mechanical device such
as fans which acts as pump.

i) Natural draught: When the required flow of air and flue gas
through a boiler can be obtained by the stack (chimney) alone, the
system is called natural draught. When the gas within the stack is
hot, its specific weight will be less than the cool air outside;
therefore the unit pressure at the base of stack resulting from
weight of the column of hot gas within the stack will be less than
the column of extreme cool air. The difference in the pressure will
cause a flow of gas through opening in base of stack. Also the
chimney is form of nozzle, so the pressure at top is very small and
gases flow from high pressure to low pressure at the top.

ii) Mechanized draught

There are 3 types of mechanized draught systems
1) Forced draught system
2) Induced draught system
3) Balanced draught system
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Forced draught: – In this system a fan called Forced draught fan is

installed at the inlet of the boiler. This fan forces the atmospheric air
through the boiler furnace and pushes out the hot gases from the
furnace through superheater, preheater, economiser and air heater to
stacks.

Induced draught: – Here a fan called ID fan is provided at the outlet of

boiler, that is, just before the chimney. This fan sucks hot gases from
the furnace through the superheaters, economiser, preheater and
discharges gas into the chimney. This results in the furnace pressure
lower than atmosphere and affects the flow of air from outside to the
furnace.

Balanced draught:-In this system both FD fan and ID fan are provided.
The FD fan is utilized to draw control quantity of air from atmosphere
and force the same into furnace. The ID fan sucks the product of
combustion from furnace and discharges into chimney. The point
where draught is zero is called balancing point.

ASH HANDLING SYSTEM

The disposal of ash from a large capacity power station is of same
importance as ash is produced in large quantities. Ash handling is a
major problem.
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i) Manual handling: While barrows are used for this. The ash is collected
directly through the ash outlet door from the boiler into the container
from manually.

ii) Mechanical handling: Mechanical equipment is used for ash disposal,

mainly bucket elevator, belt conveyer. Ash generated is 20% in the
form of bottom ash and next 80% through flue gases, so called Fly ash
and collected in ESP.

iii) Electrostatic precipitator: From air preheater this flue gases (mixed
with ash) goes to ESP. The precipitator has plate banks (A-F) which are
insulated from each other between which the flue gases are made to
pass. The dust particles are ionized and attracted by charged
electrodes. The electrodes are maintained at 60KV.Hammering is done
to the plates so that fly ash comes down and collect at the bottom. The
fly ash is dry form is used in cement manufacture.

GENERATOR
Generator or Alternator is the electrical end of a turbo-generator set. It
is generally known as the piece of equipment that converts the
mechanical energy of turbine into electricity. The generation of
electricity is based on the principle of electromagnetic induction.
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Advantages of coal based thermal Power Plant:

They can respond to rapidly changing loads without difficulty
A portion of the steam generated can be used as a process steam in
different industries
Steam engines and turbines can work under 25 % of overload
continuously
Fuel used is cheaper
Cheaper in production cost in comparison with that of diesel power
stations
Disadvantages of coal based thermal Power Plant
Maintenance and operating costs are high
Long time required for erection and putting into action
A large quantity of water is required
Great difficulty experienced in coal handling
Presence of troubles due to smoke and heat in the plant
Unavailability of good quality coal
Maximum of heat energy lost.
Problem of ash removing
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Conclusion:
The power generated from the power plant is 1720 MW with 11 units
in operation, so that the plant should be running through out once it is
started. It takes minimum of 8 hours to generate the power required
so the turbine keeps working.
Water should be supplied in intervals to keep the turbine cool and to
avoid over heating of the equipment.
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Questionnaire
1) What are diff erent t ype s o f Pul veriz es ?
Ans) Different types of Pulverizers are:

1. Ball tube mill.

2. Ring roll mill.
3. Hammer mill.
4. Attrition type mill.

2) What is the purpose of pulverizer?

Ans) To dry the coal and to crush the coal. They crush the coal up to
74microns.

3) Steam power plant works on which cycle?

Ans) Rankine cycle

4) What Ar e The Main Circuit s In The T her mal Pow er

Plant?

Ans) Thermal Power plant consists of four main circuits, they are:

1. Feed water and steam flow circuit.

2. Coal and ash circuit.
3. Air and gas circuit.
4. Cooling water circuit.
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Bibliography
www.google.com
www.wikipedia.com
www.bbc.com