Chapter One

Thermal power plant

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 Sources Of Electrical Power Generation

A.Conventional Sources
 Thermal (Coal)
 Nuclear
 Gas
 Water
B.Non conventional Sources
 Wind
 Solar- PV
 Biomass

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Disadvantages Of Conventional Sources

 Fossil fuels shall be depleted, forcing us to conserve

them and find alternative resources.
 Toxic, Hazardous gases, Residues pollute
environment.
 Overall conversion efficiency is very poor.
 Sources are located at remote places with reference to
load, increasing transmission cost.
 Maintenance cost is high.

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Schematic of a Thermal Power Plant

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 Principle of Operation of Thermal
Power Plants
• Thermal power plant operate on the principle
of Rankine thermodynamic cycle.

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 Cont…
• All four processes that make up the Rankinecycle can be analyzed as steady-flow
processes.
• The steady-flow energy equation per unit mass of steam reduces to:

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 Mechanical energy is converted into electrical energy at rated
voltage(10-30KV).

 Used steam is cooled down to water using cooling towers and

condensers.

 This preheated water is again injected in boiler tubes to

convert back to steam.

 Flue gases are passed into atmosphere and fine particles of

ash are collected through ESP.

 Ash(40% of coal weight) is collected and transported to AHP.

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 Cont….
• The thermal efficiency of the Rankine cycle is determined
from

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 Major Components of a Thermal
Power Plant
 Coal Handling Plant
Cooling Tower And Ponds
 Feed Water Heater
 Pulverizing Plant  Economiser
 Draft or Draught fan  Super heater and Re heater
 Boiler  Air pre heater
 Ash Handling Plant  Alternator with Exciter
 Protection and control
 Turbine and
equipment
Generator
Instrumentation
 Condenser
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Coal Handling

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Cont…

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 Cont…
Screening Process: There are three basic type of screening process
 Scalping-sieve ore before further processing

 Fine removals

 Grading

Crushing Process: There are four basic process to reduce the size

Impact

Attrition-grinding by friction

Shear

Compression 12
 Boiler

• A boiler (or steam generator) is a closed vessel in which water, under

pressure , is converted into steam.

• The heat is transferred to the boiler by all three modes of heat

transfer i.e. conduction ,convection and radiation.

 Major types of boilers are:

fire tube boiler and

water tube boiler 13

 Cont…
Fire Tube Boiler
The boiler is named so because the production of combustion pass through the tubes
which are surrounded by water.
 Depending on whether the tube is vertical or horizontal the fire tube boiler is
divided into
 Vertical tube boiler
 Horizontal tube boiler
 A fire tube boiler is simple ,compact and rugged in construction. Its initial cost is
low.

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 Cont…
Water Tube boilers
• In this boiler, the water flows inside the tubes and hot gases flow outside the tube .
• Water tube boiler are classified as
 Vertical tube boiler
 Horizontal tube boiler
 Inclined tube boiler

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 Cont….
Super-heater
Super heated steam is that steam which contains more heat than the
saturated steam at the same pressure.
Superheated steam causes lesser erosion of the turbine blades and can
be transmitted for longer distance with little heat loss.
The function of the super heater is to remove the last trash of moisture from
the saturated steam.

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 Cont…
Reheater
In addition to super heater modern boiler has reheater also.
The function of the reheater is:
 To superheat the partly expanded steam from the turbine,
this ensure that The steam remain dry through the last stage
of the turbine.
 A reheater may be convention type, radiant type or
combination.

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 Feed Water Heaters
 Feed Water heating improve overall efficiency.

 The dissolved oxygen which would otherwise cause boiler corrosion are removed
in the feed water heater.
 Thermal stresses due to cold water entering the boiler drum are avoided.

 Quantity of steam produced by the boiler is increased.

 Some other impurities carried by steam and condensate, due to corrosion in boiler
and condenser, are precipitated outside the boiler.

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 Economizer
Boilers are provided with economizer and air pre-heaters to recover
heat from the flue gases.
An increase of about 20% in boiler efficiency is achieved by
providing both economizer and air pre-heaters.
The feed water from the high pressure heaters enters the economizer
and picks up heat from the flue gases after the low temperature super
heater.

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 Cont…
 Economizer can be classified as an inline or staggered
arrangement based on the type of tube arrangement.

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 Air Preheaters
After the flue gases leave economizer, some further heat can be extracted
from them and is used to heat the incoming air for combustion.

Air preheaters may be of following types:

 Plate type

 Tubular type

 Regenerative type

Cooling of flue gases by 200 increase the efficiency of the

plant by 1%.
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 Steam Turbines
Steam entering from a small opening attains a very high velocity.

The velocity attained during expansion depends on the initial and final

content of the steam.

The difference in initial and final heat content represent the heat

energy to be converted to kinetic energy.

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 Cont….
The two types of steam turbines are:

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 Cont….
Compounding of steam turbines:
Single stage turbines are of low efficiency.
In compounding, a number of rotors are connected or keyed to the
same shaft.

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 Condensers
 The function of the condenser is to condense the steam exiting the
turbine.
 The condenser helps maintain low pressure at the exhaust.
 Two types of condensers are used.

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Cont…

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 Deaerators
A deaerator is a device that is widely used for the removal of oxygen and
other dissolved gases from the feed water to steam-generating boilers.
 The two basic types of deaerators are

I. tray-type

II. spray-type
The tray-type (also called the cascade -type) includes a vertical domed
deaeration section mounted on top of a horizontal cylindrical vessel
which serves as the deaerated boiler feed water storage tank.

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 Cont…
 The spray-type consists only of a horizontal (or vertical) cylindrical
vessel which serves as both the deaeration section and the boiler
feed water storage tank.

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 Cooling Towers and Spray Ponds
Condensers need huge quantity of water to condense the steam.
Water is led into the plants by means of circulating water pumps and
after passing through the condenser is discharged back into the river.
If such a source is not available closed cooling water circuit is used
where the warm water coming out of the condenser is cooled and reused.
In such cases ponds and cooling towers are used where the
water loses heat to the atmosphere.

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cont…

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 Ash Handling Plant
 In Thermal Power Plant’s coal is generally used as fuel and hence the
ash is produced as the byproduct of Combustion.
 Ash generated in power plant is about 30-40% of total coal
consumption
 Hence the system is required to handle Ash for its proper utilization or
disposal.
 The steam power plant produces 5000 of tons ash daily ( 2000MW).

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 Cont…
 The ash may be
 Fly Ash ( Around 80% is the value of fly ash generated)
 Bottom ash (Bottom ash is 20% of the ash generated in coal based
power stations.
Fly Ash
 Ash generated in the ESP which got carried out with the flue gas is
generally called Fly ash.
 It also consists of Air pre heater ash & Economizer ash (it is about 2
% of the total ash content).
Bottom ash
 Ash generated below furnace of the steam generator is called the
bottom ash.

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 Cont…
The operation of ash handling plants is
Removal of ash from the furnace ash hoppers

Transfer of the ash to a fill or storage and

disposal of stored ash

The ash may be disposed in the following way

 Waste land site may be reserved for the disposal of ash.

 Building contractor may utilize it to fill the low lying area.

 Deep ponds may be made and ash can be dumped into these ponds to
fill them completely
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Cont….

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 Electrostatic Precipitators
An electrostatic precipitator (ESP), or electrostatic air cleaner is a
particulate collection device that removes particles from a flowing gas
(such as air) using the force of an induced electrostatic charge.
 the basic idea of an ESP:
Charging

Collecting

Removing

Every particle either has or can be given a charge—positive or negative.

W e impart a negative charge to all the particles in a gas stream in ESP.

Then a grounded plate having a positive charge is set up.

The negatively charged particle would migrate to the grounded collection plate and
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be captured.
 Merits of Coal Thermal Plant

 Coal is cheap and available in abundance at present.

 It is a time tested process, so no experimentation is required.

 Less space required as compared to Hydro based

station and less hazardous than Nuclear power plant.

 Less initial cost as compared to other conventional process of power

generation.

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 Demerits of Coal Thermal plant

 Calorific coal is very low and large ash content.

 Huge volume of ash is produced daily and it’s disposal is burning

issue today.
 Atmospheric pollution is very high.

 Transportation of coal to plant and transmission of generated power to

load center involves large expenses

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