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Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) has developed a new kind of boiler . This is one of the key equipment in power generation.
Known as ‘Fuel Flexible Supercritical Boilers', this new equipment can help in producing electricity with 100 per cent domestic coal or 100 per cent imported coal. Currently, the companies are required to mix both categories of coal in a fixed ratio and also have to consider few characteristics before blending. Now, with the help of this new boiler, there would not be any such requirements.
According to a company statement, the new equipment is meant for coal-based power plant also known as thermal power plant. Latest data for power generation states that 3,55,499 billion units of power were generated during April-July of the current year, out of which 2,94,833 billion units were by the thermal power plant. This is 82 per cent of the overall power generation.
Non-availability of coal
Due to non-availability of coal from domestic sources, most of the power plants are facing tough time. This has resulted in a series of companies to either resort to operating the plant on part load due to non-availability of domestic coal or make up for the shortfall by blending indigenous coal with imported coal. Being heterogeneous in nature, the properties of coal vary from source to source. The performance of power equipment is dependent on the coal being fed to the power plant.
According to the statement, the new development will enable “the boiler to work over the entire range of blending ratios and would protect the project developer against the vagaries in coal availability, thereby providing him with an opportunity to operate the plant throughout the year.” The new equipment has been developed in-house.
The company has an advanced coal research centre at its Tiruchi plant which will be used to identify the unique combination of blended coal after carrying out the analysis of imported and domestic coal samples supplied by the customers. The associated boiler auxiliaries, also manufactured by BHEL, will be designed to accommodate the variation during firing of different type of fuels, it said.
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