Understanding coal-fired power plant

cycles
Colin Henderson
CCC/91

October 2004

Copyright © IEA Clean Coal Centre

ISBN 92-9029-406-X

Abstract
This report provides a guide to the principles of combustion-based steam cycle plants and combined (gas and steam) cycle plants
fuelled by coal. The main types of power generation cycle are introduced, followed by background on the thermodynamics of
heat engines and gas and steam cycles. The chapter on steam plant contains sections on PCC boilers, main features of turbines
and the cycles themselves. The descriptions cover the influence of appropriate pressures and temperatures, designs of feed
heating trains, use of reheat, export of heat, subcritical and supercritical cycles and other aspects, such as materials developments.
The chapter on combined cycles concentrates on the two main types (pressurised fluidised bed combustion and integrated
gasification combined cycles), describing configurations and steam cycles for these technologies. There are discussions of design
aspects and of the influence of parameters including technology type, carbon utilisation, gasification efficiency, gas turbine and
gas clean-up. Materials issues for combined cycle plants are discussed. Future power cycles based on coal will probably involve
new configurations to accommodate carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage. Examples are given to illustrate how these will
impact on the energy flows.
 Acronyms and abbreviations
A-PFBC Advanced pressurised fluidised bed combustion (Japan)
BFP boiler feed pump
BGL British Gas/Lurgi (gasifier)
CFBC circulating fluidised bed combustion
CHP combined heat and power
CO2 carbon dioxide
COS carbonyl sulphide
DTI Department of Trade and Industry (UK)
EAGLE Coal Energy Application for Gas, Liquid and Electricity (Japan)
EU European Union
FGD flue gas desulphurisation
GE General Electric Company (USA)
HCl hydrogen chloride
H2S hydrogen sulphide
HHV higher heating value
HP high pressure
IEA International Energy Agency
IGCC integrated gasification combined cycle
IGFC integrated gasification fuel cell
IP intermediate pressure
ITM ion transport membrane
kJ kilojoule
kPa kilopascal
kW kilowatt
LHV lower heating value
MCFC molten carbonate fuel cell
MCR maximum continuous rating
MDEA methyldiethanolamine
MEA monoethanolamine
MHI Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
MPa megapascal
MWe megawatt electrical
NETL National Energy Technology Laboratory (US DOE)
NOx oxides of nitrogen
O2 oxygen
PC pulverised coal
PCC pulverised coal combustion
PFBC pressurised fluidised bed combustion
p-v pressure-volume (diagram)
SCR selective catalytic reduction
SO2 sulphur dioxide
SOFC solid oxide fuel cell
US DOE US Department of Energy

2 IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE

 Contents
Acronyms and abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2 Types of power generation cycles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

3 Thermodynamics of cycles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

4 Steam cycle plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

4.1 PCC boilers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.2 Steam turbines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2.1 General arrangement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2.2 Sources of losses in steam turbines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.2.3 Steam admission and control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.2.4 Sliding pressure units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.3 Steam cycles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.3.1 Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.3.2 Feedwater heating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.3.3 Influencing parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.3.4 Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

5 Combined cycle plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

5.1 Overall cycle configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.2 Steam cycles for coal-fired combined cycle systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.3 Design aspects and influence of parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
5.3.1 PFBC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
5.3.2 IGCC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
5.4 Materials in combined cycle plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

6 Future plant designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

6.1 Oxygen production technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
6.2 CO2 capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
6.2.1 PCC-based systems with CO2 capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
6.2.2 IGCC systems with CO2 capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
6.3 Integrated gasification fuel cell cycles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

7 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

8 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles 3

4 IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE
 1 Introduction
Coal-fired power generation plants are most commonly based
on pulverised coal combustion (PCC) systems, in which heat
from combustion of the coal is used to raise high pressure
superheated steam that drives a steam turbine generator.
Steam turbine plants have been in use for over a hundred
years, and have reached supercritical conditions with
percentage efficiencies in the upper 40s, LHV (lower heating
value) basis, at favourable locations. Coal-fired power plants
can also be based on combined gas and steam cycles, which
use gas turbines as well as steam turbines. This report
provides an introduction to the principles of both types of
plant.

The decision on whether to go for combined cycle or on what

type of combined cycle to opt for is connected with issues
such as the attitude to risk of the utility, the environmental
requirements imposed by the regulating authority, the type of
duty cycle envisaged, and various other possibilities. Such
choices depend on the owner’s priorities, such as maximising
full load efficiency or ensuring operational flexibility,
minimising capital or running costs, and so on. For example,
it is unlikely that a new plant based on entrained gasification
in an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) will
have been selected if the electricity demand cannot be relied
upon to provide base loading for most of the time (because of
the probably higher investment cost and lower degree of
flexibility than for combustion-based simple cycles), or if a
highly refractory high ash coal is the design fuel; a
combustion-based combined cycle will suit a lower quality
fuel or smaller plant, and so on.

The report deals with the heat utilisation aspects of power

plants, rather than fuel handling or combustion/gasification
reactions. It includes background on the thermodynamics of
heat engines to support the discussion on cycles. Materials
issues are included in the considerations as they have an
important bearing on the performance that is now and will in
future be attainable.

Future power cycles based on coal will probably involve new

configurations to accommodate carbon dioxide (CO2) capture
for storage. Whatever the means to be adopted, they will all
involve changes to the energy flows within the plants to some
degree. Integration aspects will be important. Such cycles are
also introduced in this report.

The report is organised as follows. In Chapter 2, cycles based

on steam turbines, gas turbines and combined cycles are
introduced. Chapter 3 outlines the thermodynamics of heat
engines and steam cycles. Chapter 4 considers steam plant
cycle designs. Chapter 5 looks at combined cycle plants. The
principal parameters determining performance are described
in both of these chapters. Chapter 6 discusses future
developments in power cycles, particularly incorporating CO2
capture and storage. Main conclusions are in Chapter 7.

Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles 5

 2 Types of power generation cycles
Figure 1 shows the basic principle of combustion-based
power generation using a steam turbine. Combustion of the
fuel generates heat that is used to convert water pumped to
high pressure into high pressure superheated steam, which is
then used to drive a turbine. The turbine drives a generator.
Steam emerging from the final stages of the steam turbine is
recondensed to water which is then pumped back to the
boiler. In the steam turbine itself, the steam is expanded and
its pressure reduced through a sequence of stages of nozzles
(fixed blades) and their associated rotors (moving blades)
while its energy is converted into rotational energy of the
rotor shaft. The steam leaving the high pressure turbine at
intermediate pressure is usually reheated before further
expansion, to raise efficiency.
Other systems that make up a PCC plant are integrated within
the thermodynamic cycle, for example, the air heater that
recycles low grade heat to the boiler. Flue gas reheat after
flue gas desulphurisation (FGD) systems can take heat from
the thermodynamic cycle if they use steam heating, as
commonly applied in the USA, although newer FGD have
feed/effluent gas/gas heat exchangers that avoid losses from
this source. Where a significant accessible market exists, heat
may be exported from the plant in addition to electricity,
increasing the overall thermal efficiency while reducing the
electrical efficiency. For example, district heating schemes
can be supplied with heat from the cooler parts of the
water/steam cycle.
Combustion (gas) turbines (Figure 2) convert heat into shaft
power by using air as the working fluid rather than steam.
The air is first compressed, usually in a multi-stage axial
compressor, to around 1.5 MPa (higher pressures up to
3 MPa are used in aero-engines and their land-based
derivatives). The air is then heated by combustion of a fuel in
it, and the added energy is exploited by expansion of the hot
product gases in the turbine section. As in a steam turbine,
the fluid is expanded and its pressure reduced as it passes
through a sequence of stages of stators and rotors while its
energy is converted into rotational energy. The turbine
directly drives the compressor, and the balance of motive
power drives the generator. Gas turbines are most easily
designed for fuelling on natural gas and distillate oils, but
coal-derived gas can be used, as discussed later.
Key properties of a gas turbine are the inlet air flow rate, the
turbine inlet temperature and the pressure ratio (the
compressor delivery pressure divided by the turbine outlet
pressure). The air flow rate sets the output, while the other
two parameters determine the efficiency. As gas turbine
technology has evolved, entry temperatures have been
increased, raising efficiency. The most advanced gas turbines
used in power generation have turbine inlet temperatures
approaching 1400ºC. For example, the firing temperature of
GE’s Frame 9FB machine is over 1370ºC (Modern Power
Systems, 2002). This has been achieved through the use of
improved alloys and blade cooling systems using air channels
aspirating through holes in the blades. Increasing the pressure
6 IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE
flue gas to gas
cleaning as required
steam
steam
fuel turbine
boiler generator
air
water cooling
pump condenser water
Figure 1 Principle of combustion-based power
generation using a steam turbine
fuel
combustor
air
compressor turbine stack
generator
Figure 2 Principle of gas turbine system
ratio raises efficiency up to a maximum, before it falls off as
the compressor power requirement rises faster than the power
developed by the turbine. The optimum point lies at higher
pressures as the turbine inlet temperature is increased. As
most gas turbines exit to atmosphere, ambient conditions
generally affect output. The lower the turbine outlet pressure,
the greater the delivered motive power obtained by expansion
of the gases.
Exhaust gases leaving gas turbines are typically at a
temperature of 550–600ºC, sometimes higher, and this is
sufficiently high for the production in a waste heat boiler of
high pressure superheated steam for expansion through a
steam turbine to form a combined cycle (see Figure 3).
Combined cycles enable more energy to be obtained, because
they allow a higher upper temperature in the heat engine
cycle (gas turbine inlet temperature), while keeping the same
lower temperature of final heat rejection (wet steam outlet
from the final low pressure steam turbine stage). Reheat is
not always used in the steam cycles of combined cycles,
depending on cost-effectiveness.
The use of coal as a fuel for plants employing gas turbines
necessitates measures to limit the amount of entrained
particulates and liquid droplets (slag) passing through the
turbine to avoid damage and so achieve practical systems.
Two principal approaches have been adopted. The first uses
pressurised fluidised bed combustion (PFBC) in a bubbling
bed at around 1.0–1.5 MPa and 850ºC, followed by
particulates removal using cyclones (or sometimes a ceramic
 Types of power generation cycles

steam
turbine
generator

condenser

cooling water
steam

fuel boiler
feed
pump

waste heat
boiler stack
combustor
air

compressor turbine
generator

Figure 3 Principle of a combined gas and steam cycle

steam
steam turbine
generator
coal pressurised
combustor
condenser
water
cooling water

boiler
feed
gas clean-up pump

economiser
stack
air

compressor gas turbine

generator

Figure 4 PFBC principle

filtration system), before expansion of the cleaned pressurised
hot flue gas through the turbine expander (see Figure 4). The
pressurised air feed to the combustor is driven by the
expander, so the system resembles a normal gas turbine, but
with the combustor located remote from the rest of the
turbine. The combustion temperature is limited to around
850ºC to avoid sintering of the coal ash in the fluidised bed,
which can lead to defluidisation.
The other approach is first to convert the feed coal into a fuel
gas, using a pressurised gasification system, then to clean the
gas before firing it in a more conventional gas turbine
combustor (though designed to accommodate a medium
calorific value gas rather than natural gas). This permits
higher turbine inlet temperatures to be achieved than in
PFBC and also allows much greater variation in cycle
configurations to suit different gasifier types. Figure 5 shows
the principle of these integrated gasification combined cycle
(IGCC) systems. Water flows are not shown, to simplify. The
majority of types of gasifier that have been used for IGCC
are of an oxygen-blown entrained design, either using a
liquid coal slurry feed or a fine dry coal feed. However, other
gasifier types can be used. IGCC oxygen supply
arrangements range from complete integration, in which all
of the air for the air separation plant is provided by the gas
turbine compressor, to zero integration in which the air
separation plant has its own air supply compressors. The
optimum choice depends on flexibility required and the type
of gas turbine to be used.
Neither PFBC nor IGCC is yet widely established but IGCC
in particular is promising for the future, with its low

Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles 7

Types of power generation cycles

steam steam
steam
turbine
generator

coal raw
gas
gasifier gas cleaning

steam
oxygen clean gas

oxygen plant
air
waste heat
boiler stack
combustor
air

compressor gas turbine

generator

Figure 5 Principle of integrated gasification combined cycle power generation

emissions, high potential efficiency and scope for adaptation
to near-zero emissions and co-production of hydrogen
(Henderson, 2003a,b). There are various sources of heat from
the gas cycle in IGCC cycles apart from that in the turbine
exhaust gases, and these heat flows have to be integrated to
the maximum extent with the steam cycle for satisfactory
practical systems. Some heat or steam consumption may be
internal to the plant, for example steam may need to be sent
to a coal gasifier.
Gas turbine cycles do not have to be heated by burning fuel
within the working fluid. External (indirect) heating can in
principle be used, thus enabling fuels such as coal to be used
without gas clean-up but, because high temperatures are
needed for useful efficiencies from gas turbines, special
materials are required and such air heater systems are still
developmental.

8 IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE

 3 Thermodynamics of cycles
This chapter introduces some information on the
thermodynamics of heat engines and steam cycles to facilitate
reading in context the information in later chapters. It is
necessarily kept brief.
A heat engine is a device for extracting useful work from
heat by utilising the expansion of a gas. The Second Law
tells us that it is not possible to convert all of the heat energy
supplied to an engine into work, but that some energy will
inevitably be unused and rejected at a lower temperature. We
cannot simply take out all the energy fed in as heat in the
form of the equivalent amount of work. However, the First
Law of Thermodynamics also holds – energy must be
conserved: the total heat energy input equals the total energy
obtained from the engine as work done plus rejected heat at a
lower temperature.
The operation of an ideal engine between temperatures T1
and T2 is represented by the Carnot cycle (Figure 6). This
shows, in the form of a pressure-volume (p-v) diagram, a
cyclical sequence of reversible processes performed on a gas,
involving isothermal (constant temperature) expansion
(A➝B) at temperature T1, adiabatic (without heat addition or
extraction) expansion (B➝C), isothermal compression
(C➝D) at temperature T2, and adiabatic compression
(D➝A). The engine is drawing heat from the heat source at
T1, performing work by expansion, then returning a smaller
quantity of heat to a sink at T2. A reversible process is a
process that occurs at equilibrium throughout: it is
unattainable in practice, but may be approximated where
changes occur slowly. Irreversibility will result in lost
opportunities for producing work. An example is friction.
Inefficiencies emerge ultimately as heat flows from the
system over and above that of the ideal engine. The work
done by the ideal engine around the Carnot cycle is the sum
of all the p-v work and so is given by the area enclosed by
the p-v diagram.
p net plant efficiency of 45.1%, LHV basis, for a notional
A advances could ultimately realise steam cycle efficiencies of
B LHV implying a gross efficiency of 56%, LHV basis).
T1
D
C
T2
V effectively measures the energy dispersion in a system as a
Figure 6 p-V diagram of Carnot cycle
Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles
The proportion of the heat supplied that is converted into
mechanical work is referred to as the efficiency of the cycle.
For the ideal engine, the efficiency is related to the initial and
final temperatures of the system as follows:
h = (T1-T2)/T1 (1)
where h is the efficiency and T1 and T2 are the upper and
lower (initial and final) temperatures between which the
engine operates, expressed in degrees Kelvin. Because
thermal energy exists in the form of molecular translational,
rotational and vibrational motions, and such motions cease at
0 K (–273.15ºC), the only circumstance in which no heat
would be rejected would be for an impossible engine that
would operate with its temperature of heat rejection at 0 K,
when the above equation would give an efficiency of
conversion to mechanical work of 1, or 100%.
The lowest temperature in the steam turbine cycle depends on
the temperature of the coolant water that cools the steam and
condensate leaving the low pressure outlet of the turbine
system. Sites with access to cold sea water can reach lower
bottom end temperatures in the cycle and so higher
efficiencies. There is more scope to increase the upper
operating temperatures of steam turbines (subject to materials
availability), as has occurred over the past 100 years or so for
this reason. For an upper temperature of 600ºC (typical of a
state-of-the-art supercritical turbine) and lower temperature
of 20ºC (typical for sea water cooling at a North European
coastal location), the theoretical maximum efficiency given
by equation (1) is 66%.
In practice steam cycle efficiencies are lower. For example, a
calculation based on the gross efficiency of the Boxberg
lignite-fired plant in Germany, given as 48.65% by Smith
(2001), indicates a steam cycle efficiency of around 52–53%,
assuming a boiler efficiency of 92%, LHV basis. Welford and
others (2002) have calculated a gross efficiency of 48.5% and
30 MPa/600ºC/620ºC plant at a UK inland location, implying
a similar steam turbine cycle efficiency. Materials
development programmes are in progress to allow higher
temperature and pressure conditions. These and cycle design
around 60% (estimated from an overall efficiency of 52%,
An important property, entropy (S), can be defined by the
equation:
DS = dQrev/T (2)
Here, dQrev represents the heat absorbed during a reversible
change at temperature T (Kelvin). The entropy change, DS,
function of temperature. An increase in entropy represents
heat energy that is unavailable for doing work. Operation of
an ideal engine around a complete cycle will therefore occur
9
Thermodynamics of cycles
2 turbine
boiler
3
condenser
1 1
pump
4
Figure 7 Simple Rankine cycle with p-V and T-S diagrams (adapted from Goodall, 1981)
with no overall change in entropy and any work
accompanying such a process will be accompanied by an
equivalent decrease in enthalpy. Entropy can be expressed per
unit mass as specific entropy. Temperature-entropy (T-S)
diagrams can be plotted for heat engine cycles and are
particularly useful in consideration of steam cycles.
Steam turbine cycles involve changes of state and the
Rankine cycle was proposed independently by Rankine and
Clausius to accommodate this. In these systems, all of the
compression is performed on the working fluid while it is
liquid, so less work is required for that stage than in the
Carnot cycle. Figure 7 shows a basic Rankine cycle in
outline, together with its p-v and T-S diagrams.
The heat from the boiler increases the enthalpy (known
sometimes as heat content) of the water as its state,
temperature, volume and pressure change. Enthalpy (h) is
defined as:
h = u+pv (3)
where u is the internal energy, p is the pressure, and v is the
volume of a system. The internal energy of a system includes
the sum of potential and kinetic energy as well as that from
energy transferred as heat, which is associated with the
motional energies of the constituent molecules. The latter can
for practical purposes be thought of as accounting for all of
10
1 2
3
4
V
T
2
4 3
S
the internal energy in the context of heat engines. The
enthalpy of a fluid can be seen from the above to be the total
of the energy arising from its pressure and volume and from
its temperature (internal energy). For both the p-v and T-S
diagrams the work done by the engine is given by the areas
enclosed. In practice, irreversibilities and application of
features such as steam reheat alter the shape of the diagrams
somewhat.
It is convenient in consideration of heat engines to look at
changes in properties such as enthalpy, entropy and internal
energy, since, although they are state functions (that is,
changes depend only on initial and final states, regardless of
the pathway between them), their absolute values cannot be
known. If heat is absorbed at constant volume, the increase in
energy is the change in internal energy. If volume changes
during the absorption of heat, so that work is done, the heat
absorbed is the change in enthalpy. Here, for the Rankine
cycle, enthalpy is the appropriate measure of the heat
absorbed since it applies to energy absorbed that changes the
internal energy and the product pv. Tabulated specific
enthalpies (that is, per unit mass of water/steam), for
instance, are referenced to a standard condition, for example
they may be defined as zero at 0ºC and 100 kPa in a gaseous
or vapour phase.
Referencing to the specific enthalpies around the major
process areas of the cycle (Figure 7):
IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE

Qb = m(h2-h1) (4)
where Qb is the heat absorbed from the boiler (kJ), m is the
mass flow of water/steam (kg/s), and h1 and h2 are the
specific enthalpies of the steam or water entering and exiting
the boiler, respectively (kJ/kg).
The increased enthalpy of the steam is exploited in the
turbine, which if ideal will convert all of the enthalpy drop
across it into work. Referring to Figure 7:
Wt = m(h2-h3) (5)
where the work done by the ideal turbine is Wt (kW). In
practical turbines, the work actually done by the turbine,
Wact, is reduced by irreversibilities, and these are reflected in
the isentropic efficiency of the turbine, hs (ideal processes
have no change in entropy associated with them), which may
be of the order of 80–95%.
Wact = m(h2-h3)hs (6)
Although saturated steam can be used, and expansion of wet
steam occurs in the low pressure stages of power plant
turbines, raising the enthalpy of the main steam through
superheating is needed to achieve sufficiently high
efficiencies and to ensure that the dryness fraction does not
fall below about 90%, to minimise water droplet-induced
erosion in the low pressure cylinders. The higher energy
content in superheated steam also enables the specific steam
consumption to be reduced. Further improvements in steam
consumption, efficiency and steam dryness are also achieved
by employing reheat of the intermediate pressure steam
exiting the high pressure turbine (usually to a temperature
comparable with that of the superheated steam) before
expanding it through the remaining turbine stages. Reheat
raises the average upper temperature of the thermodynamic
cycle.
The equations are used to calculate the required distribution
of flows within the steam cycle once the temperature and
pressure conditions (and hence specific enthalpy) at each
point have been set.
Turbine cycles are often characterised by their heat rate,
which is a measure of the heat supplied compared with the
gross electrical output in kWe from the turbine. It therefore
embraces generator losses also. Commonly used units for
heat rate are kJ/kWh:
Heat rate (kJ/kWh) = 3600Qb/We (7)
The heat available to the steam cycle in a power station will
be available over different temperature ranges. Practical
systems make optimum use of the different grades of heat in
order to realise maximise efficiency. Viewing the design of
energy utilisation and transformation systems from the point
of view of ensuring that higher grades of heat are utilised
only when all reasonable use of lower grade sources has been
made has led to the concept of exergy, or available energy.
Exergetic analysis is now a firmly established sphere of
applied thermodynamics, of value in ensuring that these
Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles
Thermodynamics of cycles
important aspects are considered (in, for example in another
area, questioning whether it is appropriate to use the high
temperature heat from a flame purely for heating water at low
pressure to less than 100ºC for space heating systems). A loss
of exergy represents the destruction of work potential (De
and others, 2003). In practice, some form of trade-off will be
necessary in deciding details of design to achieve optimum
generation cost at some sacrifice of efficiency.
Increases in main steam pressure lead to an increase in
evaporation temperature and reduced heat of vaporisation,
enabling greater temperature differences across the cycle to
be achieved, and may make more room for an additional
reheat stage. All these factors favour higher efficiency cycles.
Other important factors in practice include increasing boiler
feedwater temperatures (this effectively raises the upper
temperature of the thermodynamic cycle) and choice of
turbine pressure stages.
The pressure-volume diagram for a gas turbine cycle, known
as the Brayton cycle, is shown in Figure 8. The curve 1–2
represents the reversible adiabatic compression in the
compressor, 2–3 is the line of heating at constant pressure,
and 3–4 represents reversible expansion in the turbine. The
line 4–1 represents the process of heat rejection by the
exhaust gases. The work used by the compressor is
represented by the area a21b and the work performed by the
turbine by a34b. The area of the diagram 1234 is the net
work output (in practice, irreversibilities alter the shape of the
diagram slightly).
The efficiency of a gas turbine is typically around 30%
because of the high exhaust gas temperature but the latter is
turned to advantage in associating the gas turbine with a
steam turbine to form a combined cycle. This uses the high
temperature gas turbine exhaust heat as the source of energy
for a Rankine cycle. State-of-the-art natural gas fired
combined cycles have thermal efficiencies typically of 58%,
LHV basis. Coal-fired combined cycles were described in
Chapter 2 and are looked at in more detail in Chapter 5.
There are ways to avoid the inherent energy rejection from
p
2 3
a
b
1 4
V
Figure 8 p-V diagram for Brayton cycle
11
Thermodynamics of cycles

the Second Law. These utilise other systems for converting

the chemical energy in the fuel into work. An example is the
fuel cell, which uses electrochemical processes to convert the
fuel’s chemical energy into electricity. However, adequate
fuel utilisation has to be achieved through recycling the fuel
gas to the fuel cells and/or combustion of the off-gas. In large
scale power generation applications from syngas, fuel cells
will have to be integrated with heat engine cycles for
achieving highest electrical efficiencies because of the high
thermal energy content of the exit gases. The use of fuel cells
is discussed in Chapter 6. It is also possible to convert heat
directly to electricity using the thermoelectric effect but
technologies for this are currently applied only to very
specialised, small-scale applications such as for space probes.

12 IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE

 4 Steam cycle plants
The vast majority of combustion-based single cycle steam
plants fuelled by coal utilise pulverised coal combustion
(PCC). In a PCC power station unit, heat from combustion of
coal is used to raise high pressure superheated steam which is
used to drive a turbine to generate power. This chapter is
mainly concerned with the steam turbine cycle but an initial
section discusses the steam generator (boiler). Firing systems
are not discussed.
4.1 PCC boilers
A drum-type subcritical PCC boiler takes the pressurised
preheated boiler feedwater from around 250–260ºC to
evaporation point then superheats it to 540ºC or above for
sending to the HP turbine. A supercritical boiler heats the
pressurised preheated (260–300ºC) water beyond the critical
point (22.1 MPa, 374ºC), above which water and steam are
indistinguishable, to superheat temperatures. As it is heated,
the water, already at supercritical pressure, changes smoothly
into vapour, when the critical temperature is passed, without
a liquid/vapour boundary becoming discernible. In practice,
turbulence (pseudo-boiling) can be observed through its
effect on heat transfer rates. Beyond the critical temperature,
vapour and liquid are not distinguishable and two phases do
not exist. In both supercritical and subcritical boilers,
intermediate pressure steam returning from the high pressure
to primary superheater
reheated steam to IP turbine
steam drum
superheated
from steam to turbine
economiser
secondary
superheater
evaporator
(water walls)
Figure 9 Drum-type boiler (diagrammatic)
Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles
turbine is normally reheated to main steam temperature then
returned to the intermediate pressure turbine.
Figure 9 shows in simplified diagrammatic form a drum-type
subcritical boiler. The economiser forming the last stage of
the boiler’s convective section takes the incoming feedwater’s
temperature to about 60ºC below evaporation temperature for
sending on to a steam drum/evaporator recirculation loop.
The economiser takes the flue gases down to around 350ºC.
Lower temperature heat down to about 100–150ºC is
recovered by transferring the heat to the incoming
combustion air using an air heater. Evaporation takes place
using mainly radiant heat, which is transferred to water
carrying tubes forming the wall of the furnace zone of the
boiler. The ensuing water/steam mixture passes to a large
steam drum, which allows the steam to separate, and the
water returns to the evaporator. Either forced or natural
circulation is used to send the water round the loop. Steam
leaving the drum is then sent to the primary superheater.
In both subcritical and supercritical boilers, superheat and
reheat heat transfer surfaces are mounted above the furnace
and in the convection section of the boiler. Superheaters and
reheaters are generally of pendant and/or horizontal type,
each with at least two stages (to simplify, only two for
superheat and one for reheat are shown on Figure 9). To
control steam temperatures, facilities are usually provided for
steam from HP turbine
reheater
primary superheater
from steam drum
to steam drum
economiser
boiler feedwater
heated
combustion air
air heater
boiler exit gases
to gas cleaning
combustion air
13
Steam cycle plants
reheated steam to IP turbine steam from HP turbine
superheated
steam to turbine
secondary reheater
superheater
economiser
furnace
(water walls) heated
combustion air
from economiser combustion air
Figure 10 Once-through supercritical boiler (diagrammatic)
attemperation of superheated and reheated steam by injection
of boiler feedwater sprays between the stages of heating
(attemperation features are not shown on the simplified
figure). Attemperation water may be taken at final feedwater
temperature and pressure or from the main feed pump outlet
for superheat steam attemperation or from a tapping within
the main feed pump for reheat steam attemperation. However,
since there is a significant impact on cycle efficiency, use of
these, especially the latter, is minimised so alternative
methods to control steam temperature, involving adjusting
heat transfer rates, by tilting burners downwards, use of flue
gas recirculation or even adjustment of excess air levels may
be provided. Once-through boilers sometimes omit the
facility for attemperation, using instead close matching of
firing rate to feedwater flow for steam temperature control.
The familiar two pass design may be substituted by a tower
type that can offer some advantages, including less potential
for tube bend erosion and allowing the boiler to be more
completely drainable (Stultz and Kitto, 1992). The
economiser may be mounted either above the superheater and
reheater sections or above the air heater (Scheffknecht and
others, 2003).
The configuration of a typical once-through supercritical
boiler is shown in Figure 10 in simplified form. Supercritical
boilers have smaller economisers than equivalent subcritical
boilers as the bleed steam feedwater heating system delivers
the water at a higher temperature. Once-through boilers do
not have a steam drum apart from small water/steam
separators for use during start-up (Lorey, 2003; Siemens,
14
primary
superheater
to furnace tubing
boiler feedwater
air heater
boiler exit gases to gas cleaning
2001). During normal operation, the separators (not included
in the figure for clarity) are unnecessary and are bypassed.
Once-through boilers require a different tube arrangement
from drum boilers within the furnace area. In the absence of
recirculation there is inevitably a lower liquid mass flow rate
within the furnace wall tubes, so spiral wound furnace tube
designs in the zone near to the pulverised coal (PC) burners
have commonly been adopted to give a longer path and
higher water mass flow in the tubes for greater cooling, to
prevent tube damage arising from overheating
(see Figure 11). As an alternative, internally rifled tube
designs are available, offering improved heat transfer and
lower wall temperatures at much lower mass flows through
induced swirl (Figure 12). This allows vertical tubing to be
used throughout the furnace, giving greater operating
flexibility (Scheffknecht and others, 2003). Overall, the
pressure drop is reduced, as less pipe length is needed, so
pumping power is lower than for spiral wound designs (Luby
and Susta, 2002).
As supercritical cycles have evolved, improved steels have
been developed to cater for those parts of the boiler that are
under particular stress. The use of alloys for the critical
pressure part components such as waterwalls, final superheat
and reheat sections, and main steam headers and piping has
been summarised by Scheffknecht and others (2003). The
extension to future, more severe conditions is discussed in
Section 4.3.4 of this report.
Other types of coal-fired boilers that are used for steam
turbine generation units are based on atmospheric fluidised
IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE

Figure 11 Spiral winding in once-through boiler
furnace area (Stultz and Kitto, 1992)
Figure 12 Internally rifled tube for furnace area of
supercritical boiler (Siemens, 2001)
Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles
Steam cycle plants
bed combustion, of which the most widely deployed are of
the circulating type (CFBC). The application of the heat from
such systems is very similar to that for PCC (if required,
descriptions of CFBC technology can be found in other
recent publications by the IEA Clean Coal Centre by Rousaki
and Couch (2000) and Henderson (2003a)).
The next section looks at steam turbines and the steam cycles
in which they are used, reviews the influence of parameters
on performance and looks at the use of new materials for
future improvements.
4.2 Steam turbines
4.2.1 General arrangement
In a modern large steam turbine, superheated steam at a high
temperature and high pressure is expanded while its energy is
converted into mechanical work. A turbine (Figure 13)
contains a sequence of stages of nozzles (stators, or fixed
blades) and their associated rotors (moving blades). Steam is
admitted via a stop valve, which can trip to shut off the steam
flow in emergency situations, then flows through control
valves that allow the correct flow rate for the power output
required. Pressure variation as an alternative means of setting
output is also increasingly used.
In impulse turbines, energy transfer comes from the action of
the steam hitting the blades. As the steam passes through
each stage of nozzles, its velocity increases, its pressure
drops, and the emerging high velocity stream transfers its
kinetic energy to the rotor, while the steam loses velocity.
The next nozzle stage then further drops the steam pressure,
raising the velocity for its associated rotor. Thus, the whole
of the pressure drop and attendant velocity increase are
arranged to take place within the stationary nozzles. In the
other main type of turbine (reaction), the pressure drop takes
place over the rotor blades themselves. The rotor blades are
shaped to be wider apart at the inlet side than at the outlet so
that transfer of energy to the rotor comes from the recoil as
the steam escapes. Conventionally, turbines have been largely
impulse or about 50/50% impulse/reaction in design, but
some modern turbines are designed with the reaction of each
stage individually set.
At the scale of power station turbines, it is not practical or
economic to design a single casing for taking the steam down
from main stop valve pressure to condenser pressure, as such
large degrees of volume increase and pressure drop are
involved, so separate turbines are mounted on the same axle,
tandem compounded into one machine. The high pressure
(HP) turbine exhausts at about 25% of the pressure at its
inlet, and this steam, net of that extracted for feedwater
heating, enters, usually after reheat, the intermediate pressure
(IP) turbine, normally a double flow design, which drops the
pressure to around 0.5–1 MPa, before sending it to the low
pressure (LP) turbines that exhaust at sub-atmospheric
pressure to maximise expansion and work done. On large
machines, two or three double-ended LP cylinders are needed
to accommodate the exhaust volume flow rate. Extraction
15
Steam cycle plants
boiler pressure
pressure
N B N B N B
N = nozzle
B = blade
casing
steam inlet
rotor
Figure 13 Steam turbine (Goodall, 1981)
points are located in the cylinders (casings) of the IP and
LP turbines for obtaining steam at various pressures for
feedwater heating and other possible uses, for example
export as steam or to provide heat for export after heat
exchange, for example for a district heating scheme. Where
a significant medium or low pressure export steam
requirement exists, back-pressure turbines may be selected.
These exhaust at the required pressure for the export steam
and condensing stages are not used. Such systems are not
normally encountered in utility scale power stations.
The wet steam emerging from the LP cylinders is
completely condensed in the condensers mounted
underneath the turbines. The condensers are kept at a
pressure of typically 0.003–0.005 MPa, depending on the
temperature of the available cooling water. This in turn
depends on the cooling system adopted and local
conditions. Sea water cooling gives the lowest temperatures
in temperate coastal sites, while inland sites often use
cooling tower systems with natural draught cooling of
recirculating water (with make-up to compensate for
evaporation and blowdown). Forced draught heat
exchangers may be used where smaller, lower structures are
required. In the condenser, the cooling water is pumped
through tubes over which the steam passes. Minimising the
leakage of air into the condenser is important for
maintaining adequate vacuum. Deterioration in vacuum
reduces turbine output and efficiency and air in-leakage can
increase the oxygen concentration in the condensate,
leading to corrosion of feedwater heaters, boiler and
turbine. It is also necessary maintain the temperature rise
across a condenser within rated values to keep to the
required vacuum at the turbine exit. Increases of 2% in heat
rate due to poor heat transfer from fouling are not
uncommon (Putman and Walker, 2000).
16
pressure drops
B N B
N
exhaust pressure
exhaust pressure
4.2.2 Sources of losses in steam
turbines
Sources of losses in turbines include aerodynamic losses,
leakage of steam and leaving loss. Computer aided design
and three-dimensional packages for the optimisation of blade
aerodynamic designs for maximising stage efficiencies have
enabled turbine efficiencies to be improved considerably over
the last 10 years through new three-dimensional blade
designs. A recent development, the so-called 3DV system
developed by Siemens (3D blading with variable stage
reaction) offers freedom in design philosophy and so greater
efficiency, avoiding the need for the same degree of reaction
to be applied to all stages (Luby and Susta, 2002; World
Coal, 2004).
Leakage losses occur when steam bypasses a stage by
leaking past the tips of stationary and moving blades.
Designs to minimise this depend on where most of the
pressure drop occurs, and so on the degree of reaction. With
impulse blades, most of the potential loss area is around the
nozzle blades, where most effort is concentrated in sealing,
but some sealing at the tip of the moving blades is usually
also applied. With 50% reaction blades, more elaborate
sealing systems need to be applied to the rotor blades. Water
droplets also cause a drop in efficiency in wet stages from a
braking effect on the rotor by impingement with the (faster
moving) blades. Another source of losses is associated with
the kinetic energy of the steam leaving the final LP stage.
This ‘leaving loss’ is minimised by maximising the last stage
exit area, but a trade-off between size and cost exists. It is
generally more economic to increase the LP turbine annulus
area by maximising the last stage blade length rather than to
multiply the number of cylinders (Luby, 2003). Although it
IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE
 Steam cycle plants

may not be considered a loss as such, steam is also needed to 100

seal the glands at the end of turbine shafts and so the
enthalpy in this does not provide motive power.

Steam flow, % maximum flow

80
Other important aspects associated with losses are the
minimising of blade erosion from impingement of water
60
droplets, by hardening of the leading edge of the blades of
wet stages, and understanding and eliminating blade
vibration. In supercritical units, at the high temperatures 40
encountered, solid particle erosion of the first and second
high pressure and intermediate pressure stages can lead to
efficiency loss. This has required the development of suitably 20
robust control stage nozzles (Logan and Nah, 2002).
0
Larger turbines tend to exhibit higher efficiencies than
0 20 40 60 80 100
smaller ones. This is not only due to it being generally more
Load, % MCR
cost effective to use more sophisticated features, but also
because the rotor shaft cross sectional area relative to that of Figure 14 Typical Willans line for a condensing
the steam flow path becomes smaller. As a consequence, the turbine (Quayle, 1984)
power-to-weight ratio of larger turbines is greater and
frictional and leakage losses are relatively smaller. 10500

4.2.3 Steam admission and control 10000

Heat rate, kJ/kWh

Steam enters the HP turbine typically through four nozzle 9500

chests, each of which is controlled by its own steam valve.
Where steam flow is used to set output at part load, there are
three potential means of control to set the flow rate to adjust
the power output as required. These are throttle, nozzle and
bypass governing. In throttle governed systems, all of the
valves are operated in parallel. As the load is reduced, the
turbine itself remains fairly constant in efficiency but there is
a loss due to throttling by the valves. A graph of load versus
steam flow (the so-called Willans line, see Figure 14) is
linear above an initial steam flow needed to overcome losses,
friction and back-pressure (Quayle, 1984). The plot of overall
turbine heat rate shows a curve (the upper line in Figure 15).
Nozzle control governing involves changing the number of
steam introduction nozzles that are open as the load changes.
Only two are used up to a certain load. When these are fully
open, a third nozzle is used to supply the additional flow as
demand for output rises. Finally, the fourth nozzle is opened
at loads above that obtaining when the first three are fully
open. There is therefore less throttling loss at reduced outputs
and turbine heat rate is better. The Willans line is not quite
straight and a graph of heat rate versus output is as shown by
the lower line on Figure 15.
In the less commonly encountered bypass governing, the
extra steam flow above a certain output is taken from before
the HP turbine and introduced further along the turbine train.
A method of regulating output that is gaining in popularity is
sliding pressure operation. This is discussed below.
4.2.4 Sliding pressure units
Boiler-turbine units are increasingly being designed for
sliding pressure operation to achieve better cycling
9000
throttle governed
nozzle governed
8500
valve point
8000
100 200 300 400 500
Turbine generator output, MW
Figure 15 Variation of heat rate with load for a
500 MWe turbine (Quayle, 1984)
performance. In this case, boilers are generally once-through
supercritical designs, as more rapid output changes can
thereby be achieved because of their lower thermal inertia. At
the reduced pressure used for part load operation, when the
system is operating subcritically, evaporation occurs within a
region of tubing that shifts with changes in load while the
enthalpy increases in the boiler associated with preheating,
evaporation and superheating change with pressure. Once
through boilers can increase output by 5% per minute,
compared with 3% per minute for drum boilers (Luby, 2003).
Such flexible systems reduce the drop in efficiency at
reduced load, as better control of turbine temperatures and
wetness is possible than when turbine governor valves are
throttled. In addition, boiler feed pump power consumption is
reduced and there are lower stresses on components such as
valves. In practice, a certain degree of throttling is usually
also used to maintain some reserve steam to give the
capability for meeting sudden increases in power demand.
Sliding pressure has been used for over ten years in units in
Denmark (Kjær, 1990) and is the recommended method for
new supercritical units (Fernando and others, 2000). Sliding
pressure once-through boilers are provided with small steam

Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles 17

Steam cycle plants
drums for water/steam separation at the (subcritical)
conditions of reduced load. Small separator vessels and a
recirculating pump are in any case normally provided for
start-up (Siemens, 2001).
4.3 Steam cycles
4.3.1 Principles
Figure 16 (Welford and others, 2002), which is a design for a
supercritical cycle with state-of-the-art 30 MPa/600ºC/620ºC
steam conditions, demonstrates the principles of the modern
reheat steam cycles used in power generation. Water from the
condenser is pumped through feedwater heating stages then
fed to the boiler for conversion into high pressure
superheated or supercritical steam. This is fed to the steam
turbine, expanded to around 0.003–0.005 MPa and the
emerging steam condensed in the condenser, completing the
circuit. Steam is taken off for feedwater heating, and high
pressure water (around 2–5% of main flow) may be diverted
for attemperation of the superheated and reheated steam.
Steam from reheater or or superheater headers is commonly
used for sootblowing to clear the boiler surfaces of deposits
but air or water can also be used.
Most of the heat available to the steam cycle in a PCC power
station is at a high temperature, and there is no difficulty in
raising high pressure steam and heating it to superheat and
reheat temperatures (typically 540–600ºC). Heat at lower
temperatures is taken out via the economiser, which brings
the boiler feedwater to the required temperature for
introduction to the steam drum, and via the air heater, which
recycles heat to the boiler via the incoming combustion air,
bringing the boiler flue gas temperature down sufficiently to
achieve satisfactory boiler efficiency (90–94%, LHV basis).
A broad order-of-magnitude split of heat duties within a
single reheat subcritical PCC power plant unit would be
around 8% in the economiser, 35–45% evaporator, 30–40%
in the superheater elements and 15% in the reheater elements.
Such a division of heats is less meaningful for a supercritical
boiler as evaporation is not a distinct process: there is no step
increase in heat absorption as latent heat of vaporisation.
However, the economiser will tend to be designed to take less
heat and the reheater will be responsible for broadly the same
proportion of the total heat duty as in subcritical systems.
Steam raising at a single pressure is always adequate for the
main steam cycle of conventional PCC units. Combined
cycles based on gasification, discussed in Chapter 5, can
employ steam generation at two or three pressures to
accommodate sources of lower grade heat optimally.
All large PCC turbine generating cycles employ reheat to
make maximum use of the scope for expansion of the steam
to raise output and efficiency, while keeping the steam’s
degree of wetness below damaging levels. In a supercritical
plant, the water becomes a supercritical fluid beyond the
critical temperature, but the inlet feedwater and main steam
conditions still determine the total heat duty of the boiler, as
in subcritical systems. The task of the cycle designer is to
make optimum use of the heats to maximise efficiency while
18
minimising the plant investment cost and achieving high
reliability with low routine maintenance requirements.
Account has to be taken of factors such as ambient conditions
and available cooling system options. The influences of some
of the more important parameters on steam cycle
performance are discussed in Section 4.3.3.
4.3.2 Feedwater heating
Increasing the boiler feedwater inlet temperature raises cycle
efficiency. A typical final feedwater temperature for a
subcritical plant with 18 MPa main steam pressure would be
260ºC. Supercritical plants can have final feedwater
temperatures of up to 300ºC, for example at
Nordjyllandsværket Unit 3 it is 298ºC (Jensen, 2000).
Feedwater heating is achieved by use of steam extracted from
the turbine at appropriate points to feed indirect heat
exchangers. A deaerator to keep the oxygen content of the
boiler feedwater low to avoid corrosion also heats the water by
direct contact. The supercritical steam cycle design in Figure
16 uses four surface type (indirect) low pressure heaters, three
surface type high pressure heaters and a deaerator (Welford
and others, 2002). Subcritical cycles will have fewer feedwater
heaters. Pumping is effected in two stages: a low pressure
extraction pump pumps the condensate at around 0.5–1 MPa
from the condenser through the LP heaters and deaerator, then
the main boiler feed pump raises the pressure to boiler pressure
and sends the feedwater through the HP feedwater heaters to
the input of the boiler economiser. A third pump is sometimes
used after the deaerator to raise the water pressure to an
intermediate level for passage through the first two high
pressure feedwater heaters, with the main feed pump
pressurising the water in advance of the last high pressure
heater. Thus, only one of these heaters then needs to be
designed to withstand the highest pressures.
Reliability and cost can be issues with feedwater heaters and
the balance of advantages and disadvantages normally lies
with keeping to no more than eight heaters plus the deaerator
for large steam turbine units. Depending on the pressures
used in the cycle, the final high pressure feedwater heater
may take for heating duty steam extracted from or after the
high pressure turbine. The heaters are cascaded such that the
hotter drains are added to the steam side of the next heater.
Depending on the adopted design conditions, uncondensed
steam may sometimes be taken from one or two of the
highest pressure surface type heaters to feed other HP
heaters, thereby reducing the number of HP turbine steam
extraction points required. For feedwater heaters, there is a
need to achieve minimum terminal temperature differences
(pinches) with adequate heat transfer rates to minimise the
size and cost of the heaters. Feedwater outlet temperatures
are usually close to the bleed steam saturation temperature,
especially for HP heaters. In some designs, to achieve a high
final feedwater temperature, the feedwater in the last HP
heater may be heated to above the bleed steam saturation
temperature, but such heaters are more expensive. An
alternative is to use higher pressure bleed steam. Drains from
the condensed steam may typically be designed to be around
5ºC warmer than the inlet feedwater’s temperature.
IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE
 Steam cycle plants

main flow bleed flow

economiser lower furnace wall upper furnace walls

(spiral) and arch/screen

steam

primary S/H cage roof, side and furnace roof

(horizontal) rear walls
separator

1st stage S/H spray

platen S/H primary R/H

2nd stage S/H spray R/H spray from BFP

final S/H final R/H

recirculating pump
separator
recirculating
water
HP turbine IP turbine

LP turbine
cylinders

dearator/FW
tank

condenser

BFP condensate
feedwater extraction pump

HP feedheating train (3 heaters) tapping for R/H spray LP feedheating train (4 heaters)

Figure 16 Supercritical cycle showing feedwater heating arrangements (Welford and others, 2002)

Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles 19

Steam cycle plants
Feedwater heating effectively reduces the heat addition to
the water in the boiler, raising the efficiency, but reduces the
power output per kg of main steam production, so
increasing the specific steam consumption. Monitoring and
keeping to design conditions at inlets and outlets of the
heaters and to feedwater inlet and outlet conditions across
the deaerator is important for maintaining highest
efficiency.
Surface type feedwater heaters are usually of shell and tube
construction. Designs in which the feedwater tubes are
welded to tubular inlet and outlet feedwater headers inside
the steam shell offer advantages over those employing flat
tubesheets that have to be much thicker for strength. These
include reduced thermal stress-induced failures from load
cycling, reduced maintenance requirements and better
reliability. The carbon steel tubes used in header heaters do
have to be very carefully welded because of their complex
shape (Armor and others, 2003).
Combined heat and power production
Where heat or steam is exported from the plant in addition
to electricity, significant changes occur in the feedwater
heating system flows. In district heating systems taking hot
water, part of the bleed steam goes to the district heating
scheme heaters, with the condensate from these re-entering
the low pressure feedwater stream at different points along
the LP feedwater heating train according to their
temperature. The principle is illustrated in Figure 17.
If steam is exported, there may be no return of condensate,
depending on whether the steam is intended for process use
or for supplying heat exchangers. Boiler feedwater
consumption is then increased. Depending on the required
steam pressure, significant steam export may be best
achieved in back-pressure turbine systems, which exhaust
above ambient pressures.
bleed steam from LP turbine
feedwater to
LP heater 3 LP heater 2
deaerator
condensate
hot water to DHS heat exchangers
DHS (100°C)
part of bleed steam from LP turbine
Figure 17 Integration of hot water production for district heating scheme into LP feedwater heating train
20
4.3.3 Influencing parameters
This section looks at the influences of some of the more
important parameters on steam cycle performance. Station
thermal efficiency directly affects fuel costs and has a major
influence on emissions. It is therefore probably the most
important design target after capital cost and always forms
part of the guaranteed performance specification for a new
unit. Unit efficiency is determined by factors that can be
grouped into those appertaining to the efficiency of the heat
engine cycle, those related to the extent of boiler heat
recovery for that cycle, and other factors such as auxiliary
power consumption and transformer losses. Auxiliary power
consumption can actually have a bearing on the
thermodynamic cycle design, although indirectly (thus, the
main boiler feedwater pump may be driven by a steam
turbine or use an electric drive). The text below focuses
mostly on the effects of heat engine cycle parameters.
Main steam conditions
Chapter 3 showed that the upper (main) steam turbine
temperature is among the most significant determining
factors for steam cycle efficiency, and therefore among the
first parameters to be decided upon in designing a
boiler/turbine generating unit. Figure 18 shows steam cycle
heat rate improvements as main steam pressure and main
steam and reheat steam temperatures are increased from
subcritical to supercritical conditions (Logan and Nah, 2002).
The adjacent curves show the influences of individual
changes in the main steam and reheat steam temperatures.
These data are for single reheat cycles. It can be seen that the
effect of changing reheat temperature is virtually linear, at
0.03% heat rate improvement per degree Celsius, and the
effect is perhaps not surprisingly almost independent of main
steam pressure. The gain from increasing the main steam
temperature decreases at higher temperatures.
steam from LP turbine outlet
feedwater
LP heater 1
cooling water
condenser
condensate condensate
DHS cold return (50°C)
IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE
 Steam cycle plants

9 steam conditions and overall efficiencies of some recent PCC

units (Bugge and others, 2003; Kjær, 2003; Luby and Susta,
8 2002). There are some discrepancies between some of the
single reheat data from the different sources, and ranges are given where
7 the differences are quite large.
593/621°C
Heat rate improvement, %

6 593/593°C
565/593°C
5 evaporation temperature and reduced heat of vaporisation.
565/565°C
4 538/565°C
3 538/538°C
2
Increases in main steam pressure lead to an increase in
This leads to better utilisation of the high temperature heat
and a consequent increase in cycle efficiency. Figure 18
(Logan and Nah, 2002) shows that the gain in efficiency is
independent of the adopted temperatures but is less at higher
pressures.

1
Achieving a satisfactorily low exhaust wetness will in
practice limit the upper pressure, although higher main steam
0 pressures can allow scope for two stages of reheat to get
15 20 25 30 35 around this while maximising the advantage of low
Rated main steam pressure, MPa temperature cooling water availability, as at Skærbækværket
(figures on curve are main and reheat steam temperatures °C) and Nordjyllandsværket in Denmark (Luby and Susta, 2002).
The additional stage of reheat has been quantified as
Figure 18 Heat rate improvement of single reheat contributing a two percentage point efficiency improvement
steam turbine with main steam pressure (Scheffknecht and others, 2003) but there is an associated
(Logan and Nah, 2002) capital cost penalty. Double reheat reduces the specific steam
consumption by around 15% (Kjær, 1993).
1.5
6 drum The effect of cold reheat pressure on turbine cycle heat rate is
boiler shown in Figure 20 (Welford and others, 2002).
Increase of net efficiency, %

5 0.9

0.6 Cooling water

4
3.2
3
2 flow of the steam. For example, a halving of turbine exhaust
1 Changing the design condenser pressure from 0.005 MPa to
16.7 MPa 25.0 MPa 25.0 MPa 25.0 MPa 25.0 MPa
538/538°C 538/538°C 540/560°C 566/566°C 580/600°C
Figure 19 Effect of steam conditions on plant
efficiency (Siemens, 2004)
The difference in net plant efficiency between a 25 MPa
Benson (once-through) boiler based system and a drum boiler
at 16.7 MPa, both using 538ºC main and reheat steam
temperature, is shown as over three percentage points in
Figure 19 (Siemens, 2004). Since increasing the pressure also
increases the power requirement of the main boiler feed
pump, the gain is remarkable. The effects of main and reheat
steam temperatures at fixed pressure are also shown on the
figure up to 580ºC/600ºC.
There is an accompanying gain in that higher temperatures
allow higher pressure ratios before the degree of wetness at
the turbine outlet becomes too high (>10%). There are
practical limits to achievable temperatures, with long-term
creep-resistance under the stresses of normal operation and
resistance to thermal strain during start-up and shut-down
being the important determinants. Ferritic/martensitic alloys
in state-of-the-art boiler and turbine components currently
allow temperatures of 600ºC to be used. Table 1 shows the
Design cooling water temperature has a strong effect, as it
determines the vacuum achievable at the turbine outlet and so
strongly affects the degree of expansion and final volumetric
pressure approximately doubles the volumetric flow.
0.003 MPa increases the efficiency of a PCC power plant by
around 1 percentage point. For an approach temperature in
the condenser of 12ºC, a change in condenser pressure from
0.005 MPa to 0.003 MPa corresponds to a change in cooling
water inlet temperature from 21ºC to 12ºC. Since location is
the prime determinant of achievable condenser conditions, a
trade-off may exist between marginal costs of coal
transportation versus marginal fuel costs in determining
where to site a plant. Because the size of the last LP stage is
strongly affected by exhaust pressure, choice of cooling water
design temperature can have major implications for the cost
of the LP turbine, so a trade-off exists also between capital
cost and achievable efficiency.
A reduction in cooling water temperature from 20ºC to 15ºC
at an existing plant (the Maasvlakte 540 MWe coal-fired
plant in the Netherlands) reduced heat rate by almost 1%
(Kromhaut and others, 2001). Between 15ºC and 10ºC, it
decreased by 0.5%. The capability of existing plants to take
advantage of reduced cooling water temperatures may of
course be limited by the volumetric flow rate capability of
the installed LP turbine.
In a given plant, cooling water flow rate will also influence
efficiency by reducing the cooling effect in the condenser, so
reducing condenser vacuum and power output. However, this

Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles 21

Steam cycle plants

Table 1 Recently commissioned supercritical PCC plants (Bugge and others, 2003; Kjær, 2003; Luby and
Susta, 2002)
Unit and country Year Output, Main steam Main steam Reheat Net
MWe pressure, temperature, temperature, efficiency, %
MPa °C °C LHV basis

Rostock, Germany 1994 500 26.2 545 562 43

Hemweg 8, Netherlands 1994 630 26.0 540 568 42.6

Kraftwerk Schkopau, Germany (lignite) 1996 900 26.0 545 560 40

Schwarze-Pumpe, Germany (lignite) 1997 1600 26.8 547 565 41

Matsuura, Japan 1997 1000 25.5 598 596

Haramachi 2, Japan 1998 1000 25.9 604 602

Nanaoota 2, Japan 1994-98 500–700 25.5 566–597 595

Misumi 1, Japan 1998-2001 600–1000 25.9 604 602

Nordjylland 3, Denmark 1998 385 29.0 582 582/582 47

Lippendorf, Germany (lignite) 1999 934 26.7 554 583 42.3

Boxberg, Germany (lignite) 2000 915 26.7 555 578 41.7–42.7

Tsuruga 2, Japan 2000 700 25.5 597 595

Tachibanawan 2, Japan 2001 1050 26.4 605 613 (49 gross)

Niederaussem, Germany (lignite) 2002 965 28.5 580 600 45.2

Isogo, Japan 2002 600–1000 24.5–28.0 605 613

Ranges are given where significant discrepancies exist in data from the different sources. More minor differences are ignored and only one value
given.

0.45

0.4
Turbine cycle heat rate percentage change (relative)

0.35

0.3

0.25

0.2

0.15

0.1

0.05

-0.05
4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0 6.5 7.0 7.5 8.0 8.5
Cold reheat pressure, MPa

Figure 20 Variation of turbine heat rate with cold reheat pressure (Welford and others, 2002)

may be compensated to an extent by the reduced pumping thermodynamic modelling showed that there was a different
power so that an optimum cooling water flow rate may in optimum flow rate depending on the temperature of the
practice exist. At the Maasvlakte plant in the Netherlands, cooling water (which varies at the plant’s location from 1ºC

22 IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE


to 20ºC). At 4ºC, the optimum flow rate was 12.2 m/s, while
at 20ºC it was 18.8 m/s. Results from the modelling were
confirmed by actual plant data (Kromhaut and others, 2001).
Final feedwater temperature and feedwater
heating circuit
Increasing boiler feedwater temperature effectively increases
the upper temperature of the thermodynamic cycle, raising
the efficiency. Welford and others (2002) cite 0.15 percentage
points efficiency rise for the whole unit through an increase
of 20ºC in final feedwater temperature. Feedwater heating
was discussed in detail in Section 4.3.2.
Other steam cycle influences
The flow of steam lost to sootblowing needs to be minimised
both to keep tube erosion under control and to reduce
generation and efficiency loss from taking the steam out of
the steam turbine pathway. The steam used (up to 0.5% of
main steam flow) is normally from intermediate superheater
or reheater headers but it is taken only intermittently. Boiler
blowdown on drum boilers to control water quality will also
result in some loss of heat from the cycle. Once-through
boiler systems do not have an inventory of recirculating
water, so blowdown is not possible, and a condensate
polishing system of high reliability is essential. This does
however reduce energy losses, total make-up water
requirements and waste water quantities (Luby, 2003).
Boiler heat recovery
The heat for the steam cycle has to be extracted from the
chemical energy in the coal first. Large state-of-the-art PCC
boilers have percentage efficiencies in the low-mid 90s,
depending on the air heater exit temperature on the flue gas
side. For example, the design boiler efficiency at
Niederaussem – K is 94.4% (Luby and Susta, 2002) on an
LHV basis of heat input. There is not usually any need to
debate how far to go in heat recovery as it is almost always
cost effective to maximise it. Combustion efficiency may be
typically 99.5% on design fuel so losses from this quarter are
small. The remaining lost energy is in the form of heat, partly
through radiation and air leakage across the air heater, but
mainly as sensible and latent heat in the flue gases. It is
comparatively easy to achieve efficiencies over 90% using
rotary air heaters with flue gas temperatures at their exit of
about 100–120ºC. A reduction in air heater exit temperature
by 20ºC increases thermal efficiency by around 0.5
percentage points but with most coals, to avoid acid dew
point corrosion, the gases cannot be allowed to cool below
120ºC before desulphurisation. After flue gas
desulphurisation (FGD), stack gases at temperatures of about
80ºC are normal, and the latter is around the minimum
required for plume buoyancy to ensure dispersal (most
efficiently achieved using FGD inlet/outlet gases heat
exchange). It appears unlikely that further large gains in the
efficiency of heat recovery from state-of-the-art PCC boilers
can occur, although throughputs are so large that on-going
small improvements will continue to give worthwhile fuel
cost savings.
An energy flow (Sankey) diagram for a PCC plant with an
efficiency of 40% is shown in Figure 21. The basis of the
efficiency (whether the fuel input energy is expressed as
Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles
Steam cycle plants
condenser loss and others
steam turbine
48%
fuel (coal)
boiler
90%
100%
40%
power for
42% transmission
10%
2%
exhaust heat gas house load
Figure 21 Energy flow diagram for a PCC plant
(Tsuji, 2004)
higher or lower heating value) is not stated in the source, but
the diagram illustrates well the pattern of heat flows. Around
half of the input energy is discharged at the condenser.
Flexibility
In many OECD countries, where utilities have been
deregulated, flexibility to generate efficiently during periods
of rapid load change has become more frequently specified,
even for large units. An example of large, flexible PCC units
is at Schwarze Pumpe in Germany, where two 800 MWe
supercritical lignite fired PCC units have been designed to
operate at sliding pressure to down to 40% output, with high
rates of change, and short hot start-up times. Achieving
dynamic control covers the whole plant, including firing and
emissions control as well as the steam cycle. A 6% load
change per minute is achievable at Schwarze Pumpe with
only minor effects on the main steam and hot reheat steam
temperatures without turbine throttling and without using the
storage capacity of the boiler. Very rapid ramping (for
example, by 50 MWe in seconds) requires use of a degree of
steam reserve and temporary changes in feedwater heating
(temporarily diverting steam away from feedwater heating so
that more passes through later turbine stages will have a very
short term negative effect on efficiency, but this matters less
than meeting demand over these transient periods). If the feed
pump turbine trips, a back-up auxiliary feed pump is started
and firing capacity is rapidly reduced to prevent the furnace
tubing temperature from rising excessively (Kirmse and
others, 2000).
Other influences
Auxiliary power demand is an important determinant of
station overall efficiency though mainly not through
thermodynamic effects. Most equipment areas on a PCC
plant consume some power. They include the boiler feed
pump (when electrically driven), condensate and other
feedwater pumps, fans, cooling water pumps, flue gas
cleaning systems, coal grinding, coal reception and crushing,
ash handling and limestone and gypsum handling systems. A
modern unit with an electrically driven feed pump has a total
23
Steam cycle plants
auxiliary power demand of around 6% of gross generation,
excluding the power consumption of an FGD plant. The
power demand of draught plant and pulverisers can be as
much as 2% of gross generation (Juniper and Pohl, 1996), the
boiler feed pump consumes around 15 MWe on a 600 MWe
plant, or around 2.5% of gross power (Goodall, 1981), while
balance of auxiliaries account for the remainder. An FGD
plant uses around 1.5% of gross power.
Where applicable, variable speed drives, preferably based on
variable speed electric motors, are used to reduce losses and
minimise power consumption, for example on feed pump
drives that otherwise can take excessive power if throttled at
part load. Alternatively, the main boiler feed pump may be
provided with a turbine for its motive power, as at the
Schwarze Pumpe plant in Germany (Luby and Susta, 2002).
The pump can therefore be operated at variable speed using
this system also, giving an alternative way to achieve
economy. With feed pump turbines, the auxiliary power
demand is in any case considerably reduced, but gross
generation is lower since steam is taken off from the main
turbine to drive the boiler feed pump turbine.
4.3.4 Materials
Because the steam turbine efficiency is strongly influenced
by temperature and pressure, the drive to achieve higher
efficiencies is closely connected to the development of
improved materials to withstand ever more difficult
conditions, particularly materials for PCC boiler components
such as main steam headers and main steam and reheat steam
pipework. The upper temperature limit for ferritic and
martensitic steels can be stretched to above 600ºC – the
COST 522 programme in the EU is looking to the
development of martensitic steels for steam temperatures
above 620ºC and Japanese researchers envisage temperatures
up to 650ºC using ferritic steels (DTI, 2002b) – but, to
progress much further, nickel based superalloys will be
needed. These are already used in the manufacture of gas
turbines, but, as the environment in which the materials will
need to operate differs from that of current commercial
applications, R&D is in progress to achieve alloys that are
sufficiently resistant to gas-side high temperature corrosion
and steam-side oxidation and capable of fabrication in the
large component sizes required for ultrasupercritical PCC
units. One of the barriers limiting the application of new
materials for water-walls and thick-walled components such
as high pressure headers and main steam piping is their
fabrication (Chen and Scheffknecht, 2003).
Programmes are in progress in Europe and the USA to
achieve these aims (Henderson, 2003a,b). Superalloys are
much more expensive than the current state-of-the-art
materials, but only parts of the plant need to accommodate
the most extreme temperatures and pressures. The EU is
supporting a major THERMIE project under the Fourth and
Fifth Framework RTD Programmes aimed at reaching live
steam parameters of 700ºC and 37.5 MPa (DTI, 2002a).
Important within this AD700 project is the materials
development programme, including components fabrication.
It is expected that net thermal efficiencies of 50–52% will be
24
60
line of super alloys
58
56
Plant thermal efficiency, % LHV
54
52 line of steel
50
48
Esbjerg 3 Nordjyllandsværket
46
44
42 Fynsværket 7
Ensted 3
40 Studstrup 3/4
38
250 MW
36
34
32
30
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
Year of commissioning
Figure 22 PCC plant thermal efficiency
developments in Denmark (Bugge and
others, 2003)
realised with single reheat and cooling tower cooling (3.5 kPa
condenser pressure) and 54–55% with double reheat and sea
water cooling in northern Europe incorporating reheat at
7.5 MPa and 720ºC (Bugge and others, 2003; Kjær, 2003).
Figure 22 shows how the use of superalloys is expected to
move plant thermal efficiencies forward up to 2020 in
Denmark. The superalloys for long-term operation at
700–720ºC will be developed for use in thin-walled
superheater and reheater tubes, thick-walled outlet headers
and steam piping. New austenitic materials will also be
developed for boiler tubes operating in the 600–700ºC
temperature range. The first commercial plants using the
technology are expected during the second decade of this
century. Longer term targets are for net efficiencies above
55% after 2020, using upper steam temperatures of 800ºC
(Bugge and others, 2003). A design for a horizontal
supercritical boiler of reduced height has also been produced
to enable the quantity of expensive high temperature
pipework to be reduced (Smith, 2000; Scott, 2001; Welford
and others, 2002).
In the USA, materials technologies for ultrasupercritical
conditions of 760ºC at 37.9 MPa are being developed and
materials for steam temperatures up to 870ºC are even being
considered. Nickel alloys will be considered also for
superheater and reheater tubing. Efficiencies of 46% and 48%
(presumed HHV basis) have been cited for cycles based on
single reheat and double reheat for upper temperatures of
760ºC (Schimmoller, 2003). Further information on
developments in materials for ultrasupercritical boilers are in
a recent report by the Clean Coal Centre (Moreea-Taha,
2002) and the materials have also been reviewed by
Viswanathan and others (2002). There are also descriptions
of the materials envisaged for the various boiler components
and pipework by Bugge and others (2003) and Chen and
Scheffknecht (2003).
Advanced materials are also being developed for turbines. In
fact, it is arguable that available turbines rather than boiler
materials are limiting conditions (Welford and others, 2002).
The design of high temperature turbines is strongly
IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE
 Steam cycle plants

Table 2 Materials used by MHI for state-of-the-art-supercritical steam turbines and 538°C subcritical
turbines (Luby and Susta, 2002)
Component 600°C 538°C

Rotor New 12 Cr forging Cr-Mo-V forging

Nozzle chamber 12 Cr cast steel 2¼ Cr – 1 Mo cast steel

Inner casing 12 Cr cast steel 1¼ Cr – ½ Mo cast steel

No. 1 blade ring 12 Cr cast steel 1¼ Cr – ½ Mo cast steel

No. 2 blade ring 2¼ Cr – Mo cast steel ½ Cr – ½ Mo cast steel

Outer casing 2¼ Cr – Mo cast steel 1¼ Cr – ½ Mo cast steel

Rotating blade Refractory alloy (R-26) 12 Cr forging

Main steam stop valve 9 Cr forging 2¼ Cr – 1 Mo forging

Main steam governing valve 9 Cr forging 2¼ Cr – 1 Mo forging

Table 3 Materials for 700°C steam turbines (Bauer and others, 2003)

Composition, % Application Status

Ni Cr Co Mo Other

Castings Prototype forgings and valve chest manufactured;

617 52 22 12 9.5 Al, Fe
forgings welding tests in progress; creep tests 15000 h
completed; planned oxidation tests expected to show
excellent performance
Castings Prototype forging manufactured and valve chest
625 63.5 21.5 – 9 Al, Ti, Cb, Fe
forgings fabrication planned; welding tests in progress; creep
tests 15000 h completed; planned oxidation tests
expected to show excellent performance

Waspalloy 56 19.5 13.5 4.2 Ti, Fe, Al, Si, Blades Fabricability tests completed; weldability tests
Mn, C, Zr, B unnecessary; creep tests planned; planned oxidation
tests expected to show excellent performance

influenced by the developments of improved materials and by
the use of more effective cooling steam arrangements for
critical components. Table 2 shows materials used by MHI
for high pressure parts in steam turbines for state-of-the-art
supercritical compared with 538ºC subcritical turbines (Luby
and Susta, 2002). High strength martensitic stainless steel
casting alloys for valve bodies and nozzle boxes for 593ºC
turbines are used by GE. Supercritical plants generally have
high crossover temperatures and so the low pressure turbines
have had to be forged from alloys with better fracture
toughness and tensile ductility properties. This provides
additional freedom to optimise cycle parameters while
dispensing with steam cooling, to achieve higher efficiency
levels (Logan and Nah, 2002). Armor and others (2003) have
outlined the technology and materials advances made in
supercritical turbines and the requirements for the future.
Flexibility and robustness to rapid ramping were highlighted
as areas to address closely.
700ºC technology for turbines will also be based on nickel
alloys for the hotter parts and new designs are to be produced
under the European AD700 project to minimise the
proportion of these materials that is needed (Bugge and
others, 2003). Table 3 shows information on the composition
and status of these materials (Bauer and others, 2003).
Although related materials are in use in advanced gas
turbines already, large prototype steam turbine components
made from the alloys require further testing and
demonstration, particularly to establish improved creep
strength; steam oxidation could also develop as an issue
(DTI, 2002b).
The cost of the nickel alloys needed for the turbines and
boilers handling 700ºC steam is said to have decreased to
around ten times that of the cost of the steels used for headers
in current state-of-the-art supercritical plants. Means of
keeping the cost under control include use of a horizontal
furnace design plus raising of the turbine hall floor and new
turbine designs in which the high pressure turbine is split into
two turbines, only the first of which, containing nickel alloy
components, would take the 700ºC. The use of a single
intermediate pressure turbine taking reheat steam, and so
containing nickel alloy materials, could also serve to reduce
the cost (Smith, 2000). Advanced materials of lower density
based on titanium for last stage turbine blades have been
developed to allow longer blade lengths and so increase the
exhaust area.

Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles 25

 5 Combined cycle plants
The heat available to the steam cycle in a coal-fired
combined cycle power station is available at various
temperatures and proper use must be made of these different
grades of heat for maximising thermal efficiency. In
gasification-based cycles, there may be some steam
requirements to be satisfied also.
5.1 Overall cycle configurations
In combined cycle systems, the heat from the gas cycle is
taken from more than one source. A heat source common to
all is the waste heat boiler (heat recovery steam generator)
that is used to extract useful energy from the gas turbine
exhaust gases, but also important are heats released from, for
example, combustion in a PFBC system and gasification and
gas cooling in an IGCC system.
Combined cycles are initially designed around the gas cycle.
The choice of whether to use PFBC or IGCC is the first
decision to be made. Coal characteristics will play an
important role. Another is scale. PFBC is actually well-suited
to low-grade (low calorific value, high ash, high sulphur)
coals and coal/waste fuels because of its combustion regime.
It is also compact compared with PCC and simpler than
IGCC. It is therefore suited for use in urban areas where
space is at a premium and a limited capacity is required,
while IGCC can offer very low sulphur dioxide (SO2)
emissions but usually with less flexibility on fuel type. Eight
PFBC plants have been built, mostly using ABB (now
ALSTOM Power) technology (Rousaki and Couch, 2000).
Most are still operating. The PFBC at Karita, Japan, uses a
supercritical steam cycle. To date, IGCC plants using coal as
fuel have been built in no greater number than PFBCs,
although there are several technology types and suppliers and
interest is growing.
Figure 4 in Chapter 2 showed the configuration of PFBC.
The proportion of gross power produced by expansion of the
flue gas in the gas turbine is about 20% because much of the
coal input energy is extracted as heat in the pressurised
combustor for steam raising and also because the entry
temperature to the expander is low compared with internally
fired gas turbines. The fluidised bed has to operate below
about 900ºC to prevent agglomeration, sintering and
defluidisation. Heat obtained from cooling the turbine
exhaust gas is used within the steam cycle. The effect of
using the gas turbine is to increase the thermal efficiency of
the plant by around three percentage points compared with a
PCC plant using the same steam conditions.
The three main sources of heat for an IGCC system are in
Table 4. However, there is considerable scope for variations
in availability and treatment of medium and low-grade heats
in gasification-based cycles because there are many
alternative gasifier types and possible gas cleaning systems
and environmental control systems. The type of coal to be
used is an important factor in determining which gasification
26
Table 4 Principal sources of heat for an IGCC
system with a syngas cooler
Plant area
Gasifier cooling HP or MP steam
Syngas cooler (waste heat boiler) HP steam
Gas turbine waste heat boiler HP, MP and LP steam
Various process areas
(eg sulphur/sulphuric acid LP or MP steam
recovery plant)
technology to design the configuration around. The different
types of gasifier and their suitabilities for different coals are
reviewed in a recent IEA Clean Coal Centre report (Collot,
2002). The proportion of gross power produced by the gas
turbine in an IGCC system, at about 60%, is higher than for
PFBC. This is because most of the chemical energy in the
coal is removed from the gasifier as chemical energy in the
product gas for combustion in the gas turbine combustor.
This cold gas efficiency may be typically 75–85%, but varies
with gasifier technology and fuel properties, as illustrated in
Table 5. Slurry-feed gasifiers have lower cold gas efficiencies
than dry feed systems as part of the heat generated in the
gasifier by partial combustion of the coal is absorbed as
latent heat in evaporation of the slurry water. Gravitating bed
gasifiers such as the BGL gasifier have high cold gas
efficiencies because they are counterflow and have long
reaction zone residence times. Consequently they generate
little steam and are broadly neutral in steam
production/demand. The raw gas temperature and
composition following quench with aqueous liquor ahead of
the product gas cooler is shown in Table 6 (Sander and
others, 2003). It contains methane and so has a higher
calorific value than the gas from entrained systems as
methane is produced as the feed coal is pyrolysed as it
descends towards the hottest zone of the gasifier. The steam
that is produced by the process is only at low and medium
pressure (former in the gas cooler, latter in the gasifier
jacket). The two-stage slurry feed entrained E-Gas system as
used at the Wabash River repowering project has a higher
cold gas efficiency than the single stage slurry feed entrained
ChevronTexaco process (now owned by GE Energy) because
the second stage of fuel injection captures more of the energy
by devolatilising and pyrolysing some of the second stage
feed while taking heat out of the syngas produced in the first
stage (US DOE, 2000, 2002b).
An example gas composition for the Shell coal gasification
process is included in Table 6. Figure 23 shows the process.
After a gas quench to take the temperature down from around
the 1600ºC that it reaches within the gasifier itself (Hooper,
2003) the gas is at 900ºC, or ~350ºC hotter than that
emerging from BGL gasification,. The syngas cooler
therefore raises high pressure steam. Either type of
gasification system can be used as the basis of an IGCC, but
IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE
 Combined cycle plants

Table 5 Indicative cold gas efficiencies of some gasification processes

Dry feed entrained (Shell, Slurry feed entrained Two-stage slurry feed Moving bed
Buggenum) (Hannemann and ChevronTexaco (Polk Power) entrained E-Gas (Wabash
others, 2002) (US DOE, 2002c) River) (US DOE, 2000, 2002b)

~80%, LHV basis ~70%, LHV basis ~80%, HHV basis ~90%, LHV basis
70-75%, HHV basis

Table 6 Example crude gas temperature and volume composition, BGL and Shell gasification systems
(Sander and others, 2003; Hooper, 2003; Jones, 2002)

Temperature, °C H2, % CO, % CH4, % CO2, N2, H2O, balance, %

BGL 550 28 56 7 4, 3, dry, 2

25.6 52.9 2.3, 6.9, 11.5, 0.8

Shell 900 0
(29) (60) (2.6, 7.8, 0, 0.9)

values in brackets are the data immediately above converted to a nominal dry basis

coal/petcoke
fly ash/recirc
quench gas

milling/drying gasifier 900°C

HP steam

1600°C
MP steam

coal feeding
wet gas
DSR scrubbing treating clean gas

fly ash water

slag system treatment

fly ash to salts sulphur

milling and drying

Figure 23 Shell coal gasification process (Hooper, 2003)

the gas turbine/steam turbine power balances are different
(see Table 7). The BGL based system requires all of the HP
superheated steam to be produced in the gas turbine’s waste
heat boiler, whereas only part of this duty needs to be
performed by the waste heat boiler in the Shell cycle.
4–7 MPa MP steam is produced from the water tubes
surrounding the Shell gasifier and HP steam is produced by
the convective cooler (Hooper, 2003).
The Shell coal gasification process-based Buggenum plant
with a Siemens V94.2 gas turbine of 1120ºC inlet
temperature and the somewhat similar PRENFLO Puertollano
plant with a V94.3 turbine have net efficiencies of 43% and
45%, LHV basis (Scheibner and Wolters, 2002; Hannemann
and others, 2003). The Kentucky Pioneer Power Project,
based on four BGL moving bed slagging gasifiers, and
commencing construction in 2004 has a predicted efficiency
of 40% (HHV basis) (US DOE, 2002a). Because a
combustion turbine contributes much of the power, IGCC
cycles discharge more of the coal input energy at the stack,
so sensitivity to stack temperature is high compare with PCC.
After allowing for the fact that higher stack temperatures tend
to apply under US conditions, with net efficiency
implications of perhaps 1–2 percentage points, the combined
cycle efficiencies are surprisingly similar for all three, while
the balances of energy flows within the cycles differ. The

Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles 27

Combined cycle plants
Table 7 Division between gas turbine power and steam turbine power for some existing IGCCs and
predicted data, % gross power
Tampa Electric Wabash River Buggenum
Polk - E-Gas - Shell
- Chevron (USDOE, 2000) entrained
Texaco radiant (Hannemann
(USDOE, 2002c) and others,
2002)
GT 61 67 55
ST 39 33 (repowering) 45
BGL system, although producing virtually no net steam, has
a high cold gas efficiency to compensate. Gasification cycles
incorporating single stage slurry feed entrained gasifiers with
a water quench do not under the same conditions achieve
cycle thermal efficiencies as high as those from radiant cooler
designs because high pressure steam cannot be produced in
the gasification/gas clean-up process area and cold gas
efficiency is penalised by the evaporation of the slurry water.
However, the cost of the gasification/gas clean-up process
area is lower.
Table 7, showing the division between gas turbine power and
steam turbine power for some existing IGCCs, is a reflection
of the relative balances of fuel gas energy and HP steam
production. The table also contains some predicted data taken
from a study using the ASPEN process simulation system
(NETL, 2000).
The IGCC cycles above use conventional gas scrubbing for
ammonia and sulphur gases removal from the fuel gas as this
is based on commercially proven technologies (such as use of
amines or methanol to remove hydrogen sulphide (H2S) from
the gas). Pre-conversion of COS (carbonyl sulphide) to H2S
is also needed so that it can be removed. The sulphur is
recovered as elemental sulphur, which has a by-product
value. The gaseous contaminants are scrubbed out after final
particulates removal, which usually is accomplished by
cyclones and/or filters operating at around 300ºC. Gas
scrubbing has to be done after heat recovery from the
de-dusted or de-tarred gas, which then has to be reheated
again before combustion. There is an inevitable energy
penalty from the use of these features in IGCC cycles and
higher temperature de-dusting and gaseous contaminants
removal would allow more efficient cycle configurations. Key
requirements of such cycles are reliable technologies for
particulates and sulphur gases removal at around 500–600ºC.
The former are not reliably proven even on combustor
off-gases, while hot desulphurisation systems are at the pilot
stage. New sorbents are emerging (Slimane and Williams,
2002; Slimane and others, 2002). The recent impetus to
mercury emissions reduction in some countries will need to
be accommodated within both cold and hot gas clean-up
concepts, as a significant proportion of the mercury from the
coal tends to emerge in the stack gases of current designs of
IGCC.
Higher efficiency IGCC cycles will be achievable even
without hot gas clean-up, using improved gas turbines and a
28
Puertollano BGL ChevronTexaco ChevronTexaco
- PRENFLO (NETL, 2000) radiant cooler quench
entrained (NETL, 2000) (NETL, 2000)
(Méndez-Vigo,
2004)
57 67 59 64
43 33 41 36
high degree of system integration. An efficiency of 51.5%
(net, LHV basis) has been predicted for a cycle using a
Siemens V94.3A gas turbine (Pruschek and others, 1999;
Haupt and others, 2003). It should however be noted that
high degrees of integration do limit flexibility and start-up
time, and a lower maximum continuous rating (MCR)
efficiency cycle of less capital cost may be preferred as a
lower risk investment in many circumstances.
5.2 Steam cycles for coal-fired
combined cycle systems
In combined cycles the steam cycle configuration follows
from the selection of major systems in the gas cycle,
although flexibility does exist in steam cycle design. For
example, combined heat and power (co-generation) plants
have been constructed based on PFBC. Energy outflows from
the steam cycle impact on electric power generation from the
steam turbine but the comparatively small proportion
produced by the gas turbine is unaffected.
Figure 24 shows the power cycle for the 360 MWe Karita
supercritical 24.2 MPa/566ºC/593ºC PFBC plant (Veenhuizen
and Anderson, 2000). It resembles the cycle of a
once-through PCC unit and includes a steam separator for
low load operation and start-up, as in other once-through
systems. However, the placement of the main heat extraction
surfaces is different. All the main tube banks including the
superheater and reheater are located in the fluidised bed,
while the economiser takes its heat from the turbine exhaust.
The similarity of heat availability to PCC allows reheat to be
used, although economics restrict this to larger scale units
only as here at Karita. The economiser not only heats the
high pressure feedwater to main boiler inlet temperature, it
also performs some of the low pressure and high pressure
feedwater heating in parallel with bleed steam heaters. The
air heater is omitted, as the economiser thereby cools the gas
turbine exit gases from around 375ºC to stack temperature
(~150ºC). Combustion air from the gas turbine compressors
passes through an annular tube surrounding the cleaned
combustion gases to recover heat. Even for subcritical cycles,
a single pressure of evaporation is invariably used as this is
sufficient to exploit the high proportion of high grade (high
temperature) heat.
The choice of configuration of an IGCC steam cycle will
depend on the gasification/gas clean-up combination, but the
IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE
 Combined cycle plants

pressurised fluidised bed boiler

gas turbine pressure vessel

steam turbine
annular tube conveying HP air
fluidised main steam
bed boiler
reheated
HP air HP gas turbine air steam
compressor LP IP turbine
LP gas turbine compressor HP turbine LP turbine

generator generator
75 MW intercooler 290 MW

sea
P water
cooling
denitrification ash ash water
equipment pump
condensate
economiser P pump
feedwater deaerator
feedwater
P pump
feedwater
heater

ESP

stack

ash
coal limestone

unloading hopper coal storage

yard
coal
coal receiving
carrier hopper
crusher
limestone
silo
mixer
water

fuel slurry tank

fuel slurry pump P

Figure 24 Flow diagram for Karita PFBC plant (Veenhuizen and Anderson, 2000)

whole integrated system can offer many choices that have
implications for the steam cycle (for example, the extent of gas
cooling for steam generation relative to that used in exchange
with other gas streams). Figure 25 shows the reheat steam
cycle for the 250 MWe Polk IGCC plant in the USA owned by
Tampa Electric that uses GE’s ChevronTexaco slurry feed
gasification technology with a radiant gas cooler for raising
high pressure steam (US DOE, 2002c). The gas emerging from
the radiant cooler is also cooled in two parallel fire tube boilers
(syngas coolers). The reheat steam cycle utilises three
pressures of steam (HP at 9.86 MPa, IP at 2.65 MPa and LP at
0.45 MPa). HP and MP steam from the process areas are
generated at pressures of 11.48 MPa and 3.00 MPa and let
down to the pressures shown above, which are in the steam
drums of the gas turbine heat recovery steam generator (waste
heat boiler). All main steam superheating and reheating is
effected in the waste heat boiler. Net MP and HP flows are into
the steam turbine. All the MP and HP steam turbine cycle
feedwater heating arrangements are effected using the waste
heat boiler. LP steam is extracted from the steam turbine for
process use. Recirculating systems with steam drums are
normally used in IGCC steam systems as there are many steam
and heat demands and sources to be accommodated and means
of storing steam are valuable for flexibility. However, once-
through supercritical technology may eventually be adopted for
the gas turbine heat recovery steam generators on future IGCC
plants (Davison and others, 2003).
A cycle for a gasifier fitted with a gas quench and a
subsequent sour shift reaction stage is shown in Figure 26
(O’Keefe and others, 2001). The arrangement is predicted to
give plant efficiencies of over 40%, LHV basis.
Means of limiting thermal NOx production in the gas turbine

Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles 29

Combined cycle plants

stack gas
166°C

HRSG
stack

ECON 1

bypass
LP
deaerator

drum

LP EVAP
LP
to gasification
LP steam

and ASU

BFW pump

ECON 1
HP
SGCs and SAP
economised
MP BFW to

ECON

ST condensate
IP

heater
ECON 2
HP

gasification plant
SGCs and SAP
MP steam from

drum

IP EVAP
IP

o’head condenser
vacuum flash
economised HP

ECON 3
BFW to SGCs

HP
IP SHT

generator
125 MW
turbine
from SGCs

steam
HP steam

drum

HP EVAP
HP

condenser
LP turbine
SHT 1
RHT 1

LP extraction steam to
gasification and ASU
SHT 2

turbine
IP
RHT 2

turbine
SHT 3

HP
exhaust
574°C
CT

Figure 25 Tampa Electric Polk IGCC steam cycle (US DOE, 2002c)

in IGCC systems employ control of the flame temperature saturation with water is used, heat is extracted from the steam
using water saturation or nitrogen addition to the fuel gas. If cycle to heat the fuel gas. Water is more effective for NOx
nitrogen is used, this is available from the air separation unit reduction than nitrogen. The energy for heating the fuel gas is
supplying oxygen to the gasification process area. If not all lost as it is exploited within the combined cycle. At

30 IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE


coal gasification
O2 shift reactor
ASU
HP steam
expander
Figure 26 Flow diagram for quench IGCC with shift and CO2 capture (O'Keefe and others, 2001)
the Buggenum, Puertollano and, more recently, the Tampa
Electric Polk plant, both nitrogen and water saturation are
used together (McDaniel and Hornick, 2003; Hannemann and
others, 2003).
Heat recovery boilers on gas turbines are sometimes fitted
with facilities (duct burners) for direct firing with
supplementary fuel to reduce heat transfer surface area
requirements or to allow higher steam cycle upper
temperatures at reduced gas turbine load. Such a system is
unlikely to be worthwhile on IGCC systems because of the
additional complication. However, it is common to use
natural gas or distillate fuel as a back-up fuel for the gas
turbine to maintain availability during gasification or syngas
clean-up system outages.
5.3 Design aspects and influence
of parameters
5.3.1 PFBC
Carbon utilisation
Carbon utilisation is generally very high in PFBCs, with their
efficient contacting of coal and air – for example, 99.5% was
obtained at the Tidd PFBC demonstration in the USA
(US DOE, 2002a).
Gas turbine
In conventional PFBC, there is limited scope for increasing
the efficiency through gas turbine developments since the
turbine inlet temperature is set by the fluidised bed
combustion temperature, which is limited to below ~900ºC to
avoid fluidisation problems. One way around this is to use
hybrid cycles containing both coal gasification and
combustion systems. These aim at realising complementary
advantages of each type of system, including exploiting high
Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles
Combined cycle plants
CO2
sulphur
BFW LP steam
AGR
SRU
TGTU
combined
cycle
unit
saturator
inlet temperature gas turbines. Many configurations are
possible, including feeding PFBC off-gas to a fluidised bed
gasifier or burning syngas in PFBC off-gases (deeply cleaned
to avoid turbine blade damage by hot contaminants) before
expansion through the turbine. Activities are under way in
Japan, Europe, and the USA. The A-PFBC process in Japan
is an example (Saito and Harada, 2003; CCUJ, 2002). Such
hybrid processes are still developmental (Henderson, 2003a).
Steam cycle
The potential gain from higher steam conditions and other
steam cycle improvements in PFBC is similar to that
discussed for PCC plants in Section 4.3.3, as 80% of the
gross power developed is from the steam turbine, with most
of the heat for that coming from the coal PFBC combustor.
The use of higher steam conditions in the steam cycle of a
combined cycle plant has been applied to the Karita 360
MWe PFBC in Japan, which uses a 24.1 MPa/566ºC/566ºC
supercritical cycle to achieve a gross efficiency of 42%, HHV
basis (estimated to be equivalent to around 44%, LHV basis).
Hot gas filtration
PFBC cycles should gain higher efficiencies from the use of
filtration systems rather than cyclones alone because the
pressure drop with such systems is less than given by
cyclones. They would also give improved reliability of the
gas turbine, lower running costs and better environmental
performance. However, reliable, fail-safe filtration is essential
to realise these benefits. Tests have been carried out on the
Escatron plant in Europe, the Wakamatsu PFBC in Japan and
at Tidd in the USA (Henderson, 2003a). The reliability of
filtration for PFBC systems is not universally accepted as
demonstrated.
Auxiliary power demand
Minimising auxiliary power demand is as important in
combined cycles as in PCC systems. As an FGD plant is not
required for SO2 removal (the latter is accomplished by
31
Combined cycle plants

condenser loss and others

35%

steam turbine
42% power for transmission
43%
PFBC boiler

44%
fuel (coal)

100%

8%
gas turbine

1%
13%

16%
house load

exhaust heat recovery

exhaust gas loss and others

Figure 27 Energy flow diagram for the Karita PFBC (Tsuji, 2004)

limestone addition to the combustor), auxiliary power

Table 8 General suitability of gasifier
consumption is lower than for PCC. An energy flow diagram
characteristics to different coals
for the Karita PFBC is shown in Figure 27 (Tsuji, 2004).
Auxiliary power demand (house load), at only 2.3% of gross Coal property Gasifier types generally best
power, is no more than half of that for PCC. NOx emissions suited
are inherently lower than for PCC, so an SCR (selective Large size Gravitating bed, fluidised bed
catalytic reduction) unit is also not required for most
High fines content Entrained
locations, saving a small amount of further power.
Caking Entrained
High moisture Dry feed entrained but drying
5.3.2 IGCC required before grinding
High ash fusion
Gasification technology temperatures
Non-slagging
The selection of technology depends strongly on the
characteristics of the coal for which the system is to be High ash content Non-slagging
designed. Gasifiers available for IGCC fall into three general
types: efficiency penalty and at worst not produce a freely flowing
● entrained bed (such as ChevronTexaco slurry feed, now slag film on the gasifier wall and cause blockages at the slag
owned by GE; Shell dry feed); outlet. Coals with large quantities of fines or with strongly
● fixed (moving) bed (such as Lurgi and BGL; former caking properties are less suited to gravitating bed systems as
British Gas interests in the latter are now owned by these cannot be fed easily. Coals with very high moisture
Advantica); contents, can also be difficult to slurry for feeding to slurry
● fluidised bed (such as KRW, IGT, HTW and transport fed gasifiers. The suitability of the various types of gasifier
gasifiers). for different coals have been reviewed in detail in a separate
IEA Clean Coal Centre report (Collot, 2002). The effect on
Gasifiers may be designed for ash slagging or they may be the thermodynamic cycles are the concern here, but the
non-slagging. Table 8 shows the general suitability of the information in Sections 5.1 and 5.2 indicates that the net
gasifier types for different coals. Coals with very high silica overall effect on thermal efficiency need not be overriding.
contents in their mineral matter or with very high ash
contents are probably not well suited to use in slagging Carbon utilisation and cold gas efficiency
gasification systems as they are likely to at least suffer an Conversion is also usually about 98% or higher in slagging

32 IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE


gasifiers. As an example, the 150 tpd entrained gasifier in the
EAGLE pilot plant in Japan has a carbon utilisation of 99%
(Suzuki, 2003). Fluidised bed gasifiers usually exhibit carbon
conversion levels no higher than 95% and so they would be
used within hybrid gasification/combustion cycles. The
residual carbon in the ash taken from the gasifier would be
utilised in a combustor. Such cycles have not yet been built
(Henderson, 2003a).
The cold gas efficiency of a gasification process is the
proportion of the input coal energy that emerges as chemical
energy of the fuel gas stream. For a given carbon utilisation,
a lower cold gas efficiency implies that more of the coal’s
chemical energy is retained as heat, which must be captured
efficiently and used within the steam cycle. The net effect
was illustrated in the examples in Section 5.1, which showed
that good design practice results in similar overall IGCC
performance between dry feed technologies of different cold
gas efficiencies. When slurry feeding is used for the gasifier,
some of this heat is lost because it is trapped as latent heat as
the slurry water evaporates. It is then difficult to realise a
power generation efficiency that is as high as for dry feeding,
although the net effect need not be large. Slurry feed gasifiers
are also offered with a water quench for the raw gas in place
of use of a radiant gas cooler and, although this will further
penalise ‘straight’ IGCC efficiency, it could reduce the
efficiency penalty in CO2 capture configurations.
Gas turbine
In an IGCC plant, the gas turbine type is a major determining
factor on overall efficiency because it contributes about 60% of
the gross power produced by the plant and determines the
plant power consumption 6%
gas turbine
gas turbine
syngas cleaning
gasification and
power
75% clean
fuel syngas
100% 45%
(coal)
20% net steam and heat to ST cycle
5%
losses
(radiation, slag, carbon losses, CW)
Figure 28 Indicative energy flow diagram for IGCC
Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles
Combined cycle plants
upper temperature of the heat engine cycle. Figure 28 shows an
indicative Sankey diagram for IGCC. Gas turbines for syngas
firing are currently offered up to the F-class, with turbine inlet
temperatures of 1350–1400ºC. Currently, the most efficient
IGCC systems have an efficiency of around 45%, LHV basis.
The anticipated future upward trend in efficiencies of IGCC
cycles is largely based on expected advances in gas turbines, as
Table 9 shows. This table also shows estimated further
incremental enhancements to the future IGCC efficiency of
51.5% predicted by European workers in the field that was
referred to in Section 5.1 and that will also involve continuing
improvements in a number of other areas (Pruschek and others,
1999; Pruschek, 2000; Haupt and others, 2003).
The gas turbine advances will further exploit the use of
compressor intercooling, the use of reheat, new materials and
cooling systems to permit still higher entry temperatures,
initially on natural gas-fired versions but flowing through
later to syngas firing technology. ALSTOM Power’s GT26B
machine, as installed for example at the Enfield natural gas
fired combined cycle plant in the UK, already employs reheat
(Modern Power Systems, 2000). In general, it will be most
efficient and economic to choose the most advanced turbine
that can be supplied with full commercial guarantees based
on the expected syngas quality. The first H-class gas turbine
with a higher firing temperature than the current F-turbines
and employing steam cooled blades is currently being tested
on natural gas. H-class turbines could increase IGCC
efficiency by between 1.3 and 1.4 percentage points. Together
with the other gas turbine improvements, they may give
ultimate IGCC efficiency improvements of 3–6 percentage
points (Davison and others, 2003; Pruschek, 2000).
net power
44%
steam turbine
power
20%
30%
gas turbine
steam
exhaust turbine 30% condenser and other losses
cycle
15%
HRSG stack losses
33
Combined cycle plants

Table 9 Estimated further incremental improvements to IGCC efficiencies (Pruschek, 2000)

Option Key parameters Efficiency increase,

% points

Staged gasification

Combustion+reduction zone (fuel staging)

Reduced raw gas temperature Raw gas temperature 1100°C
+0.2
Higher cold gas efficiency Cold gas efficiency 90.1% LHV

Chemical raw gas quench

Alternative medium injected into raw gas to Best quench medium CH4
reduce temperature and increase LHV by Temperature after quench 1113°C
chemical reaction Raw gas LHV 13.1 MJ/kg +0.2
Considered media: H2O, CO2, CH4, C2H6 and Quench gas LHV 14.1 MJ/kg
clean syngas
Dry high temperature syngas cleaning

Dry adsorption processes for contaminants

Adsorption temperature 500–650°C
No gas cooling so no H2O condensation +0.7 / +1.2
Fuel gas temperature 375°C / 500°C
No process steam, lower pressure drop

Gas turbines with enhanced TIT

Higher specific power output TIT (ISO) 1400°C
Adapted compressor pressure ratio Pressure ratio 30 MPa
Higher exhaust temperature enables GT exhaust gas temperature 633°C +2.3
improved steam cycle Live steam temperature 600°C
Higher NOx and cooling flow
Reheat gas turbine
2nd combustion chamber
Further increased pressure ratio TIT (ISO) 1200°C / 1400°C
Higher exhaust gas temperature Pressure ratio 41 / 53 MPa +1.4 / +3.6
Higher specific power output GT exhaust gas temperature 604°C / 641°C
Reheat pressure adapted Live steam temperature 584°C / 600°C
Supercritical bottoming steam cycle

Non-reheat GT:
HRSG with once-through boiler for supercritical Live steam pressure 25 MPa +0.4
steam and forced circulation for IP and LP Live steam temperature 570°C
steam Reheat GT:
Syngas cooler for reheating IP steam GT exhaust gas temperature 641°C
Steam turbine efficiency drops with live steam Live steam pressure 30 MPa +0.8
pressure Live steam temperature 620°C

Syngas adapted gas turbine

Compressor mass
flow:
Non-intrgrated ASU concept N2 from ASU admixed -4.7% Small increase
Reduced compressor size N2 from ASU not admixed -15% (compared Advantages
with V94.3A) concerning operability

Syngas temperature at gas turbine combustor
inlet
Pruschek and others (1999) have calculated the effect of this
parameter on thermal efficiency. Figure 29 shows their
results. The efficiency is increased as the syngas temperature
is raised because of the direct utilisation of the sensible heat
of the gas within the combined cycle.
Steam cycle
As in PCC plants, there is a drive to increase steam conditions
in natural gas combined cycle plants, as turbine exhaust
temperatures of gas turbines rise with new designs (Franke and
others, 2000). GE have introduced steam turbines for their
1370ºC firing temperature F-class gas turbine combined cycles
with main steam conditions of 16.5 MPa/565ºC (Modern
Power Systems, 2002). This pressure is higher than that of the
HP steam from gasifiers (around 11 MPa), presenting
something of an integration challenge.
Supercritical steam cycles could in principle be used in IGCC

34 IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE

 Combined cycle plants

NOX emission to 36 ppm at 15% O2

52.0

H2O fraction for limitation of

18%

51.8 16%
IGCC plant efficiency, % LHV

14%

51.6
12%
250 350 450
Temperature of fuel gas, °C H2O fraction for 36 ppm NOX at 15% O2 (see inset figure)

51.4

51.2
H2O fraction = const (15.3% H2O)

51.0
250 300 350 400 450 500
Fuel gas temperature at combustion chamber inlet, °C

Figure 29 Effect of fuel gas temperature on IGCC plant efficiency (Pruschek and others, 1999)

cycles with future gas turbines with their higher exhaust and/or slurrying, pressurising systems, feed pumps, fans,
temperatures. For example, Alstom’s existing GT26B gas cooling water pumps, syngas cleaning systems, by-product
turbine exhausts at 640ºC (Modern Power Systems, 2000). plants and slag handling.
Re-balancing of the use of the available heat sources from the
gasifier/gas clean-up system would also have to be carefully Other aspects
judged to avoid negating any gains from the use of higher Gasification pressure is an important parameter. Increasing it
steam pressures. increases the heat recovery by the syngas stream and reduces
equipment size. However, more energy is needed for
Hot gas cleaning pressurising the feed coal and oxygen, and this has to be
The application of hot gas cleaning to IGCC was discussed in recovered using a fuel gas expander ahead of combustion in
Section 5.1. the gas turbine. The 3–4 MPa pressure of dry feed entrained
gasifiers appears to lie near the optimum for IGCC efficiency
Auxiliary power demand for such systems (Davison and others, 2003). Higher
Auxiliary power consumption varies greatly between pressures are used in slurry feed gasifiers as pressurising of
different IGCC installations, partly because of the degree of the feed is simpler to achieve.
oxygen plant integration employed. The cryogenic air
separation unit can take over 50% of the power demand. Ramping rates of IGCC plants are less than for PCC (or
Total in-plant consumption is typically 10–12% of gross PFBC), especially for highly integrated designs. This is
power, for example at the IGCCs with integrated oxygen because the various process areas must be kept in balance as
plant air supply at Buggenum and Puertollano (de Winter, load changes. The highly integrated 250 MWe Nuon IGCC at
1992; Méndez-Vigo, 2004). IGCCs with non-integrated Buggenum has achieved a maximum ramping rate of
oxygen plant tend to have the have higher power 3.5 MWe per minute (Wolters, 2003). As has been discussed
requirements, for example the Tampa Electric Polk plant uses earlier, much greater ramping rates (of the order of 6% per
over 20% of gross power (US DOE, 2002c), although another minute) are readily achievable on once-through PCC units.
non-integrated configuration has been predicted to have an
in-plant power demand equal to only 12.4% of gross power
(O’Keefe and others, 2001). The adoption of ion transport 5.4 Materials in combined cycle
membrane technology (described in Chapter 6) would reduce
the power consumption of the oxygen plant by more than a
plants
third and raise IGCC efficiencies by around one percentage The reliability and availability of gasification combined
point while reducing specific capital cost (Armstrong and cycle plants are currently limited by materials
others, 2003). Other oxygen stream consuming cycles, such considerations. A spare gasifier is currently necessary to
as oxy-coal combustion (also described in Chapter 6), would achieve availabilities of 90% (Holt and others, 2003).
also benefit. Deterioration of refractory linings frequently occurs after
initial slag penetration, but methods of preventing this using
Other equipment areas or systems of significant power phosphate-modified materials are being developed (Dogan
demand include coal reception and crushing, coal grinding and others, 2002).

Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles 35

Combined cycle plants

Another difficulty is that shell-boiler type gas coolers used to

cool the raw product gas prior to cleaning can be subject to
erosion from ash or char particles as well as damage from
deposition leading to excessive temperatures and tube failure.
Acid-induced corrosion can arise under the deposits during
down time. High temperature corrosion is also an issue, with
acidic species such as H2S and HCl (hydrogen chloride)
present and improved corrosion resistant materials are needed
(DTI, 2002b).

Much of the expected future progression in the efficiency of

IGCC cycles will come from the use of new advanced gas
turbines and this was discussed in Section 5.3 and included in
Table 9. Developments on these will include the use of new
materials and single crystal blading (Jannson, 2003).

PFBC systems on the whole involve less aggressive

environments than IGCC. For example, reducing conditions
are not encountered so corrosion presents problems that are
little different from those in conventional PCC boiler
systems. Although the gas turbine operates at a relatively low
temperature, it does have to be ruggedised to cope with the
increased loading of solid particulates that it encounters
compared with turbines burning natural gas or distillates.
This would give rise to fouling, erosion and corrosion which
have been solved by the turbine suppliers (ALSTOM Power)
by using lower gas velocities and coated blades with
specially optimised profiles. The development of hot gas
filtration media and systems, to reduce the solids loading on
the turbine and increase efficiency, has been partially
successful. Mechanical failure can occur after ash bridging or
thermal shock and chemical attack (Anthony, 2003). At the
Wakamatsu plant in Japan, ceramic tube filters, on which
filtration occurs on the inner, as opposed to the outer,
surfaces of the candles were regarded as a success (Sasatsu
and others, 2002). Elsewhere, porous metal filters are being
developed as an alternative to ceramics. Anderson and others
(2002a) are examining enhancement of the aluminium
content of commercial superalloys.

PFBC steam cycles have reached supercritical conditions

with the plant at Karita and further advance is in principle
possible as materials developed for ultrasupercritical PCC
cycles become available, with PFBC using more conservative
conditions at first. However, the lack of direct support from
ALSTOM, the original developers of the technology, is a
severe constraint on further development and deployment.

36 IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE

 6 Future plant designs
Coal-fired power plants provide over a third of world
electricity and so will be needed for some decades to ensure
that power supplies remain secure. Future power cycles based
on coal will probably involve new configurations to
accommodate carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and its
permanent storage. In their simplest forms, these may consist
of flue gas scrubbing systems added after the flue gas
desulphurisation (FGD) plant on PCC units, but a range of
future possibilities exists, some of which even include new
types of turbine to be developed (Henderson, 2003a).
Whatever the means to be adopted, they will all involve
changes to the energy flows within the plants to some degree.
Integration aspects will be important.
6.1 Oxygen production technology
One of the challenges for IGCC and IGCC systems
employing CO2 capture is to reduce the energy requirement
for oxygen production. Both the power consumption and cost
of conventional cryogenic oxygen plants currently penalise
IGCC economics. Ceramic ion transport membranes (ITM)
that selectively transport oxygen ions at high temperatures
(~600–1000ºC) are the basis of a technology for air
separation that could avoid these disadvantages (Stein and
others, 2002; Prasad and others, 2001), but it will be
important to achieve integration of the new pattern of heat
flows that this will introduce: incorporation of the ceramic
membrane system will involve thermal integration with other
hot streams within the plant. ITM systems are expected to be
available for IGCC plants within 5–10 years.
oxygen air
oxygen blower
fuel
heat exchange
Figure 30 Ion transport membrane oxygen plant integration with combined cycle (Armstrong and others, 2003)
Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles
A suggested method of integration includes combustion of
some of the fuel gas in the air stream feeding the ITM
oxygen production modules (see Figure 30). The heat in the
spent air stream is utilised by using it as the combustion air
of the gas turbine. The oxygen stream is cooled for heat
recovery to the steam cycle (Armstrong and others, 2003).
Stein and others have evaluated a similar cycle and also one
involving indirect heating of the air using gas turbine exhaust
gases heated in a duct burner with supplementary fuel (clean
syngas). The overall IGCC efficiency improvement was
predicted to be around 1 percentage point for the former
system but a drop in efficiency occurred for the latter as the
steam cycle efficiency was impaired (Stein and others, 2002).
ITM oxygen plant would also benefit the thermal efficiency
of a form of PCC with CO2 capture that would employ firing
of the coal in oxygen/recycled flue gas mixtures. This is
discussed in Section 6.2.1.
6.2 CO2 capture
The future challenge of incorporating CO2 capture systems
into coal-fired plant designs brings with it the need to
re-evaluate the treatment of energy flows within the cycles.
There are many types of plant design that have been
proposed for achieving CO2 capture from both
combustion-centred and gasification-centred plants. Some
examples are given below and the approaches that may be
adopted for heat integration are described. In addition, there
is a considerable electrical energy penalty in the need for
steam
HRSG
electric power
‘air’
oxygen
ion transport membrane
37
Future plant designs
compression and liquefaction of the separated CO2. Thus
in-plant power consumption will be higher than for
non-capture plant.
6.2.1 PCC-based systems with CO2
capture
These systems can be crudely grouped into two categories.
The first involves using gas separation systems to remove for
storage the CO2 from the flue gas stream of a relatively
conventional PCC plant. The second, more radical, method
would use a partially recycled flue gas/oxygen mixture for
combustion of the coal, with off-take of CO2 for storage after
condensate removal (‘oxy-fuel’ or ‘oxy-coal’ combustion).
CO2 separation from flue gas
One of the most commercially established methods for CO2
capture from gases at low pressure is scrubbing using
chemically active agents that are regenerated by heating to
release the CO2 as a concentrated scheme. Aqueous solutions
of amines such as MEA (monoethanolamine) or MDEA
(methyldiethanolamine) have been proven for use under
reducing conditions and are gradually being demonstrated for
use for CO2 capture from flue gas.
The main issue with chemical absorption solvents of
particular relevance here is the large energy requirement for
regeneration. The raw energy requirement for regeneration of
MEA is around 4 MJ/kg CO2 captured for flue gases with
CO2 concentrations representative of that from PCC (Croiset,
2004). Based on this energy requirement, a PCC plant fitted
with a CO2 chemical scrubber using such a solvent would
have a thermal efficiency around 10–12 percentage points
heat input from boiler
VHP HP IP
FWH8 FWH7 FWH6 deaerator FWH5
heat for CO2 release reboiler
Figure 31 Use of cross-over steam for heat for CO2 scrubber regenerator (Gibbins and Crane, 2004)
38
lower than a standard PCC plant, including energy for
liquefaction and compression of the CO2 for sequestration.
However, improved absorbents and better thermal integration
of cycles will be capable of reducing the regeneration energy
penalty. For example, a sterically hindered amine (KS-1) in
commercial use for urea manufacture produced by Kansai
Electric Power and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd requires
as 0.3 MPa steam 3.2 MJ/kg CO2 (Mimura and others, 2001),
and it has been reported that new solvents under development
based on amino acid salt solutions should require only
2.3 MJ/kg CO2 (Feron, 2004). The power generation
efficiency penalty using KS-2 in an optimised cycle is
reported at around 22.5% (Gibbins and Crane, 2004).
Low pressure steam is needed for heating the regenerator,
which operates at about 125ºC. For a pinch temperature in
the heat exchanger of 10ºC, saturated steam at 0.31 MPa is
appropriate. Rather than take this directly from the LP
turbine (see, for example Mimura and others, 1998), Croiset
and co-workers (Alie, 2003) assumed a let-down turbine fed
by 1.18 MPa, 187ºC cross-over steam. Other studies have
also shown a thermodynamic advantage in using cross-over
steam, cooled by heat exchange with high pressure feedwater,
rather than using low pressure steam from the LP turbine
(Gibbins and Crane, 2003, 2004). Figure 31 shows the
suggested configuration. Lower grade heat flows from the
CO2 compressor coolers and the reflux condensers would be
utilised in heat exchangers placed in parallel with the normal
LP bleed steam heaters. Such systems are potentially suitable
for existing plants but, to be economic, these would need also
to be upgraded with new boiler, steam turbine and steam
systems to reach state-of-the-art supercritical steam
conditions. An interesting approach that has been suggested
for reducing the cost involves storing the spent solvent to
LP G
heat to
condenser
cooling water
FWH4 FWH3 FWH2 FWH1
HPFWH additions
LPFWH additions
heat from heat from liquid
compressor CO2 reflux
intercoolers condensers vapour
IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE

allow additional generation at peak periods with solvent
regeneration carried out at low electricity demand (and price)
periods (Gibbins and Crane, 2003). Dry CO2 absorption
systems based on CO2 absorption by lithium silicate (to form
lithium carbonate) at ~600ºC and its reverse reaction above
700ºC to release the CO2 are being developed in Japan
(see, for example, Shimomura, 2003; Kato and Moniwa,
2004).
Most of the processes based on physical processes (solvents,
adsorbents and membranes) appear less well suited
energetically to treating boiler flue gas, where the pressure
and CO2 partial pressure are low, than to treating higher
pressure, more concentrated streams, such as are encountered
in gasification cycles embodying CO2 capture
(see Section 6.2.2). A promising exception may be electrical
swing adsorption (ESA), which uses an electric current
passage through the adsorbent for regeneration (Judkins and
Burchell (2002). This technique, currently at the laboratory
scale, could be potentially suitable for separation of CO2
from mixtures containing almost any concentration of the
gas, and would have a low energy requirement for
regeneration.
In addition to the effect of taking steam from the power cycle
for absorbent regeneration, there is also an energy penalty
from the additional power for the CO2 removal systems,
notably the exhaust gas fan used to overcome the exhaust gas
pressure drop in the absorber column – there could be scope
for some improvement of efficiency by use of new absorber
column packing materials – and compression of the captured
CO2 stream for transport and storage. An electrical
requirement of 69 kWh of electricity per tonne of CO2
removed, for 90% removal from the flue gas of a PCC plant
using MEA, has been given by Feron (2004).
Oxy-coal combustion
Oxy-coal combustion involves combustion of the coal in an
oxygen/recycled flue gas mixture containing ~35% oxygen
(Croiset and Thambimuthu, 2000) instead of air. The
CO2-rich gases from the boiler would be cooled, condensate
removed, the recycle stream returned, and the balance of CO2
taken off for storage. Heat transfer within the boiler would be
significantly better than for a conventional PCC system
(McDonald and Palkes, 1999) and it is therefore possible that
a capital cost saving could be made for a new installation,
although the cost of the air separation system would add to
this. Boiler efficiency may also be improved, but it is not
certain what the overall cycle net thermal efficiency would be
compared with scrubbing systems and otherwise similar
conditions. The system could be applied to existing PCC
boilers as a retrofit. Use of an air heater is not necessary in
flue gas recycle systems and changes to heat recovery
balances within the boiler and economiser would need to be
calculated and flows adjusted accordingly to maintain boiler
efficiency. The application of oxy-fuel technology to the
retrofit of a power plant and a refinery system showed that an
increase in boiler thermal efficiency occurred from the
recycle of hot flue gas (Wilkinson and others, 2003).
Efficiency would be lower than for conventional processes
without CO2 recovery, as oxygen production and CO2
Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles
Future plant designs
compression and liquefaction would still consume
considerable quantities of power. For a cryogenic air
separation unit, power consumption for the delivery of 95%
O2 at low pressures is around 200–240 kWh/Mt of O2.
Laboratory and pilot scale tests of the system for PCC have
been carried out (Tan and others, 2002). Use of oxygen
production using ion transport membranes, described in
Section 6.1, would allow a power and cost saving.
6.2.2 IGCC systems with CO2 capture
IGCC with pre-combustion capture of CO2 is regarded by
many as the coal-fired power generation technology likely to
be most applied within about two decades because it could
give a process that is of higher electrical efficiency than PCC
with CO2 capture that would also be readily configurable for
an important range of additional products (hydrogen, liquid
fuels and chemicals). Cleaned gasifier product gas would be
converted to hydrogen plus CO2 by addition of steam then
use of a shift reaction. The CO2 would be separated for
storage, then the hydrogen burnt in the gas turbine with
nitrogen as a diluent. The additional products would be
obtained by taking off some of the hydrogen and/or syngas
for chemical processing. Among the hurdles needing to be
overcome are perceived higher cost and complexity and
disappointing reliability and availability even of ‘straight’
IGCC relative to PCC, plus the fact that large gas turbines
have not been demonstrated on hydrogen (Henderson,
2003a,b).
The advantage of CO2 removal before it reaches the gas
turbine is that the shifted fuel gas is at elevated pressure and
the CO2 in higher concentration than it would be in the flue
gas from the turbine (or a PCC plant). Consequently, it
should be removable at lower cost and efficiency penalties by
using physical methods, such as physical scrubbing, pressure
swing adsorption or membranes, although chemical
scrubbing could also be used.
Simulations of IGCC cycles with CO2 capture generally show
an efficiency penalty, relative to straight IGCC, of around
6–8 percentage points, including the energy required to
compress and liquefy the CO2 ready for storage. As an
example, Haupt and others (2003) have calculated a
6 percentage points reduction in efficiency for a cycle
capturing 90% of the CO2 by physical scrubbing of shifted
gas using Rectisol. This was for the separated CO2 stream
leaving at just above atmospheric pressure. Compression and
liquefaction would increase the efficiency penalty. Fiaschi
and Lombardi (2001) actually modelled an IGCC cycle with
85 % CO2 removal by chemical (amine) scrubbing of the
shifted gas. The efficiency was calculated at 38.80%,
compared with 46.44% for an equivalent conventional IGCC.
There are prospects of reducing the energy penalty of CO2
removal from IGCC systems to perhaps 4 percentage points
by use of newer techniques. For example, the use of a
membrane reactor could reduce the energy penalty for
capturing CO2. In this, shift-reaction and CO2 capture would
be carried out in a single reactor equipped with a dense metal
membrane permeable to hydrogen.
39
Future plant designs
The use of a water quench gasifier would save the additional
energy losses from raising the steam that needs to be added
before the shift reactor. Fuel gas shift for hydrogen separation
or CO2 capture (or both) requires addition of an excess of
steam over that stoichiometrically required. Thus, the
efficiency penalty of incorporating CO2 capture systems is
markedly reduced compared with the radiant cooler cycles.
The exothermic shift reaction would allow HP steam to be
produced in either case. There are different views on the
relative final efficiencies of the CO2-capture cycles.
A longer term possibility for gasification cycles with CO2
capture, briefly reviewed by Henderson (2003a), is the
application of oxygen combustion of syngas, with expansion
of CO2 or steam/CO2 mixtures through specially designed
turbines (Mathieu and Demaret, 2001; Anderson and others,
2002b, 2003).
6.3 Integrated gasification fuel cell
cycles
Use of high temperature fuel cells together with coal
gasification in integrated gasification fuel cell (IGFC) cycles,
incorporating also gas and steam turbines, will permit higher
thermal efficiencies than IGCC. High temperature fuel cell
stacks are currently only at the scale of a few MWe, even on
natural gas or reformed natural gas-derived feeds (Entchev
and Douglas, 2002), so their incorporation within
commercial-scale IGFC lies some way off. Fuel cells require
very deep cleaning of the fuel gas to remove particulates and
contaminants such as hydrogen chloride and hydrogen
sulphide, and currently this could only be achieved using cold
gas scrubbing systems. However, high temperature syngas
cleaning will clearly favour higher cycle thermal efficiencies.
gasifier
coal
nitrogen
air ASU
oxygen
anode
MCFC
cathode
heat recovery boiler
air
catalytic burner
Figure 32 Process concept for commercial scale EAGLE IGFC (Benson, 2001)
40
Carbon monoxide would not present a difficulty as it serves
as a fuel in molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFCs) and solid
oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). The MCFC would require CO2 to
be fed to the cathode as it is one of the reactants for this type
of fuel cell.
The MCFC operates at about 600–700ºC, while the SOFC
operates at about 900–1000ºC. Large power generation
applications would utilise pressurised cells but the cleaned
fuel gas would probably still need to be reduced from gasifier
pressure by expansion through an expander (with power
recovery) before being fed to the cell stack. The exit gases
require extensive heat recovery and exploitation to obtain an
efficient power cycle, and integration with a gas turbine or
expander would be needed. The fuel cell would effectively
replace the combustor in a gas turbine combined cycle by
electrochemically oxidising the fuel, with the simultaneous
generation of electricity. An example of an IGCC-fuel cell
concept is the Japanese EAGLE project (CCUJ, 2002).
Figure 32 shows the planned conceptual flowsheet for a
commercial scale plant based on the technology. A recent
Clean Coal Centre report describes this and a number of
other IGFC cycles (Benson, 2001).
Integrated gasification fuel cell cycles with
CO2 capture
IGFC configurations are possible that maintain high
efficiency while capturing CO2 because the fuel and air
streams to the fuel cell are not mixed but supplied to opposite
electrodes so the CO2 stream is not diluted with nitrogen.
Thus, post fuel cell capture may be used, or pre-fuel cell
capture after shift of the syngas is an alternative, akin to an
IGCC cycle with CO2 capture. External utilisation of the
issuing 15–20% or so of unconverted fuel gas is also needed,
and means for CO2 capture during this, based on membrane
syngas cooler
cold gas cleanup
filter
expansion turbine
HRSG
G
steam turbine
gas turbine
G
IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE
 Future plant designs

reactors, can be used for highest CO2 abatement (Haines,

1999; Dijkstra and Jansen, 2002). A variant has been
simulated by Kuchonthara and others (2001), in which
shifted syngas is using a membrane separator to give
hydrogen, which is then fed to an SOFC, with excess
hydrogen fired in the gas turbine combustor. For cycles based
on MCFCs, the supply of CO2 to the cathode may be
accomplished using a combustor. In order to exploit the
thermodynamic advantages of all of these cycles, deep
cleaning of the syngas will have to be achieved.

Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles 41

 7 Conclusions
Coal-fired power generation plants are most commonly based
on pulverised coal combustion (PCC) and a water-steam
thermodynamic cycle. Heat from combustion is used to raise
high pressure superheated steam which is used to drive a
turbine to generate power. Coal-fired power plants can also
be based on combined gas and steam cycles, which use gas
turbines as well as steam turbines. This report has provided
an introduction to the principles of both types of plant, with
examples and background on the thermodynamics of heat
engines.
Heat engines work by exploiting the work done in a cycle of
expansions and compressions of a fluid as heat is added and
lower temperature heat is rejected. The efficiency is related to
the initial and final temperatures of the system, and is
favoured by maximising the temperature range over which
the engine operates.
A subcritical PCC boiler takes the pressurised preheated
boiler feedwater to evaporation point then superheats it to
540ºC or above for sending to the HP turbine. A supercritical
boiler heats the feedwater beyond the critical point to
superheat temperatures. In the steam turbine, the steam is
expanded while its energy is converted into mechanical work
as it passes over static and moving blades within high
pressure (HP), intermediate pressure (IP) and low pressure
(LP) turbines, that are usually compounded onto one shaft
that drives the generator. Steam emerging from the LP
turbines is recondensed then pumped back to the boiler after
pre-heating. Sources of losses in turbines include
aerodynamic losses, leakage of steam and leaving loss as
kinetic energy in the stream issuing from the last LP turbine
stage.
The thermal efficiency of state of-the-art PCC plants is
45–47%, LHV basis, at cold sea water cooling locations.
Such plants use main steam conditions well into the
supercritical range with pressures approaching 30 MPa and
temperatures around 600ºC. All large steam turbine cycles
use reheat of intermediate pressure steam from the high
pressure turbine exit and multiple stages of feedwater
pre-heating using steam extracted from the turbine to
maximise efficiency.
The influence on performance of various factors and
parameters in PCC systems, including main steam
temperature and pressure, cooling water temperature,
feedwater heating and auxiliary systems, has been described
in the main body of the report. Because of the degree of
scope for further efficiency improvement through moving to
even higher steam conditions, materials development
programmes are in progress in different parts of the world to
reach them. These and cycle design advances are expected to
realise power plant efficiencies well beyond 50%, LHV basis.
For boilers, alloys are needed with resistance to gas-side high
temperature corrosion and steam-side oxidation and capable
of fabrication in large component sizes. Superalloys based on
nickel are promising, but are much more expensive than
42
current state-of-the-art materials. However, costs are
decreasing and only parts of the plant will need to
accommodate the most extreme conditions. For turbines,
advanced materials and more effective cooling steam
arrangements are being developed. This technology will also
be based on nickel alloys and new designs are to be produced
to minimise the proportion of these materials that is needed.
Related materials are in use in advanced gas turbines already,
but prototype steam turbine components made from the
alloys require further testing and demonstration.
Combined cycles use the high inlet temperature of gas
turbines as the upper temperature in a more complex
arrangement. The efficiency of a gas turbine on its own is
typically only around 30% because of the high exhaust gas
temperature, but the latter is turned to advantage in using it as
a major source of energy for the steam cycle. The use of coal
as a fuel for a gas turbine necessitates measures to limit the
amount of entrained particulates and liquid droplets reaching
the turbine to avoid damage. Two principal approaches are
used. The first, pressurised fluidised bed combustion (PFBC),
employs pressurised combustion of the coal then particulates
removal before expansion of the hot flue gas through the
turbine expander. The pressurised air feed to the combustor is
driven by the expander, so the system resembles a normal gas
turbine, but with the combustor located remote from the rest
of the turbine. The other approach, known as integrated
gasification combined cycle (IGCC), is to convert the feed
coal into a fuel gas then to clean the gas before firing it in a
gas turbine designed to accommodate the medium calorific
value gas. IGCC permits higher turbine inlet temperatures to
be achieved. Various configurations are possible and
examples have been given in this report. PFBC and IGCC
plants exist at a number of locations. IGCC systems could
incorporate fuel cells also, for higher efficiency, when these
are sufficiently developed in scale.
In PFBC, the effect of using the gas turbine is to increase the
thermal efficiency of the plant by around 3 percentage points
compared with a PCC plant using the same steam conditions.
The similarity of heat availability to PCC allows reheat to be
used, although economics restrict this to larger scale units. In
IGCC systems, there are many alternative gasifier types and
configurations. The type of coal to be used is an important
factor in determining which gasification technology to use.
The associated water-steam cycle design depends on the
gasification and gas clean-up technologies used.
Factors and parameters determining performance of PFBC
systems include carbon utilisation, gas turbine characteristics,
main steam temperature and pressure, cooling water
temperature, gas filtration and auxiliary power consumption.
PFBC steam cycles have reached supercritical conditions and
efficiencies of 44%, LHV basis, and further advance is in
principle possible if materials developed for ultrasupercritical
PCC cycles are eventually applied.
For IGCC, the factors considered include gasification
IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE
 Conclusions

technology, carbon utilisation and cold gas efficiency, gas

turbine design, use of hot gas cleaning and auxiliary power
consumption. The reliability and availability of gasification
combined cycle plants are currently limited by materials
considerations, including lifetime of refractory linings and
corrosion in syngas coolers. Much of the expected future
progression in the efficiency of IGCC cycles beyond their
current 45%, LHV basis, will come from the use of new
advanced gas turbines, which will also require the use of new
materials, as well as technologies such as single crystal
blading, compressor intercooling and reheat.

Future power cycles based on coal will include new

configurations to accommodate carbon dioxide (CO2) capture
for storage. Whatever the means to be adopted, they will all
involve changes to the energy flows within plant designs.
PCC-based systems with CO2 capture can be grouped into
two categories. The first involves using gas separation
systems to remove for storage the CO2 from the flue gas
stream of a relatively conventional plant. One of the most
commercially established methods for CO2 capture from
gases at low pressure is scrubbing using chemically active
agents but an issue is the large energy requirement. There is
scope for reducing it using improved reagents and more
optimised cycles. The second method would use a partially
recycled flue gas/oxygen mixture for combustion of the coal,
with off-take of CO2 for storage after condensate removal
(‘oxy- coal’ combustion). Boiler efficiency may be improved,
but it is not certain how the overall cycle net efficiency or
cost would compare with those of scrubbing systems.

IGCC with pre-combustion capture of CO2 could give a

process that is of higher electrical efficiency than PCC with
CO2 capture. Cleaned gasifier product gas would be
converted to hydrogen plus CO2 using a shift reaction, the
CO2 separated, then the hydrogen burnt in the gas turbine.
The advantage of CO2 removal before it reaches the gas
turbine is that the shifted fuel gas is at elevated pressure and
the CO2 in higher concentration than it would be in the flue
gas from the turbine (or a PCC plant). Consequently, it
should be removable at lower cost and efficiency penalties.

There are alternatives to heat engines for converting the

chemical energy in the fuel into work. This can avoid the
inherent limitations on efficiency that heat engines have. An
example is the fuel cell, which uses electrochemical
processes to convert the fuel’s chemical energy into
electricity. Integrated gasification fuel cell (IGFC)
configurations are possible that maintain high efficiency
while capturing CO2.

Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles 43

 8 References
Alie C, Croiset E, Douglas P, Ordorica G (2003)
Simulation of CO2 capture from coal-fired power plants:
supplemental energy management. 5th International CO2
Capture Network, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 2-3 June 2003.
Cheltenham, UK, IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme
(2003)
Anderson I E, Gleeson B, Terpstra R L (2002a)
Development of metallic filters for hot gas cleanup in
pressurized fluidized bed combustion applications.
Conference 16. Annual conference on fossil energy,
Baltimore, MD, USA, 22-24 Apr 2002. Report number
IS-M—917
Document producer Ames Lab., IA, USA. OSTI
DE00802956. Available from:
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/802956-7snb6y/native/
13 pp (Jul 2002)
Anderson R E, Brandt H, Pronske K, Viteri F (2002b)
Near-term potential for power generation from coal with zero
atmospheric emissions. In: 27th International technical
conference on coal utilization and fuel systems, Clearwater,
FL, USA, 4-7 Mar 2002. Gaithersburg, MD, USA, Coal
Technology Association, CD-ROM, pp 51- 62 (2002)
Anderson R, Brandt H, Doyle S, Pronske K, Viteri F
(2003) Power generation with 100% carbon capture and
sequestration. In: 2nd annual conference on carbon
sequestration, Alexandria,VA, USA, 5-7 May 2003 (2003)
Anthony B (2003) Atmospheric and pressurized fluidized
bed technology. Clean Coal Technology Roadmap Workshop,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 20–21 Mar 2003. Canada, Natural
Resources Canada. Available from:
http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/es/etb/cetc/combustion/cctrm/htmldoc
s/events_calgary_workshop_e.html 23 pp (2003)
Armor A F, Viswanathan R, Dalton S M, Annendyck H
(2003) Ultrasupercritical steam turbines: design and materials
issues for the next generation. VGB PowerTech; 83) (10);
48-53 (2003)
Armstrong P, Sorensen J, Foster T (2003) ITM oxygen: an
enabler for IGCC. In: Gasification Technologies Conference,
San Francisco, CA, USA, 12-15 Oct 2003. Gasification
Technologies Council, USA (2003)
Bauer F, Stamatelopoulos G N, Vortmeyer N, Bugge J
(2003) Driving coal-fired power plants to over 50%
efficiency. VGB PowerTech; 83 (12); 97-100 (2003)
Benson S (2001) Fuel cells - use with coal and other solid
fuels. CCC/47, London, UK, IEA Clean Coal Centre, 58 pp
(Jun 2001)
Bugge J, Kjær S, Blum R (2003) High-Efficiency Coal-
Fired Power Plants Development and Perspectives. In: Risoe
international energy conference: Energy technologies for post
Kyoto targets in the medium term, Roskilde, Denmark, 19-21
May, 2003. Risoe National Laboratory, Roskilde, Denmark.
pp140-146 Also available from:
http://www.risoe.dk/rispubl/SYS/ris-r-1405.htm (Sep 2003)
CCUJ (2002) Country report on coal research and
development in Japan in the field of coal utilization. In: 27th
meeting of International Committee for Coal Research,
Brisbane, Australia, 24-25 September, 2002. Centre for Coal
Utilization, Japan, 21 pp (Sep 2002)
44
Chen Q, Scheffknecht G (2003) New boiler and piping
materials. Design considerations for advanced cycle
conditions. VGB PowerTech; 83 (11); 91-98 (2003)
Collot A-G (2002) Matching gasifiers to coals. CCC/65,
London, UK, IEA Clean Coal Centre, 64 pp (Oct 2002)
Croiset E (2004) Effect of CO2 concentration in the flue gas
on the MEA capture process performance. 6th International
CO2 Capture Network, Department of Chemical Engineering,
NTNU, Trondheim, Norway, 8-9 March 2004. Cheltenham,
UK, IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (2004)
Croiset E, Thambimuthu K (2000) Coal combustion in
O2/CO2 mixtures compared to air. Canadian Journal of
Chemical Engineering, 78; 402-407 (Apr 2000)
Davison J E, Bressan L, Domenichini R M (2003) Coal
power plants with CO2 capture: the IGCC option. In:
Gasification Technologies Conference, San Francisco, CA,
USA, 12-15 Oct 2003. Gasification Technologies Council,
USA (2003)
De S, Roy D, Sarker A (2003) Performance study of a
partial gasification pressurized combustion topping gas cycle
and split rankine combined cycle: Part II - Exergy analysis.
International Journal of Energy Research, 27; 561-574
(2003)
de Winter H M J (1992) Integrated coal gasification
combined cycle (ICGCC) demonstration project, Buggenum,
the Netherlands. In: World Energy Council 15th Congress,
Division 1, Energy and the environment, technical session
1.2, Modified energy processes, Madrid, Spain, 20-25 Sep
1992, pp 77-90 (1992)
Dijkstra J W, Jansen D (2002) Novel concepts for CO2
capture with SOFC. In: 6th annual conference on greenhouse
gas control technologies (GHGT-6), Kyoto, Japan, 30 Sep -
4 Oct 2002. Available from:
http://www.ecn.nl/docs/library/report/2002/rx02044.pdf 25 pp
(2002)
Dogan C P, Kwong K-S, Bennett, J P, Chinn, R E, Dahlin
C L (2002) Improved refractory materials for slagging coal
gasifiers. In: 27th International technical conference on coal
utilization and fuel systems, Clearwater, FL, USA, 4-7 Mar
2002. Gaithersburg, MD, USA, Coal Technology Association,
CD-ROM, pp 1167-1175 (2002)
DTI (2002a) News from the Cleaner Coal R&D Programme.
Advanced pf power plant project. Cleaner coal research
matters, No 11, Spring, 2002. London, UK, Department of
Trade and Industry. Available from:
http://www.dti.gov.uk/cct/pub/news11p3-4.pdf Cleaner coal
research matters, No 11, p 3 (2002)
DTI (2002b) Review of status of advanced materials for
power generation. Technology status report 018. London,
UK, Department of Trade and Industry, 22 pp (Oct 2002)
Entchev E, Douglas M (2002) High temperature fuel cells
(HTFC) - an option for CO2 reduction and capture. In:
American Flame Research Committee Meeting: Fuel
selection issues for industrial combustion processes, Ottawa,
Canada, 8-10 May 2002. IJmuiden, Netherlands,
International Flame Research Foundation or Houston, USA,
American Flame Research Committee, CD-ROM, 18 pp
(2002)
IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE

Fernando R, McNabb D, Coade R, Coldham R, Mason M,
Holmes D, Pham D, Swainsbury D, Goonan G, Johnson T,
Mann S D (2000) Non-baseload operation of coal-fired
power plant. CCC/33, London, UK, IEA Coal Research,
75 pp (Jun 2000)
Feron P (2004) New solvents based on amino acid salt
solutions for CO2 Capture from flue gases. 6th International
CO2 Capture Network, Department of Chemical Engineering,
NTNU, Trondheim, Norway, 8-9 March 2004. Cheltenham,
UK, IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (2004)
Fiaschi D, Lombardi L (2001) Performance analysis of an
IGCC power plant with integrated CO2 – H2S chemical
absorption In: POWER-GEN Europe 2001: Environmental
issues - CO2 management, PennWell, CDROM (2001)
Franke J, Lenk U, Taud R, Klauke F (2000) Advanced
Benson HRSG makes a successful debut. Modern Power
Systems; 20 (7); 33-35 (Jul 2000)
Gibbins J, Crane R (2003) Reducing the cost of CO2 removal
using solvent scrubbing. 5th International CO2 Capture
Network, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 2-3 June 2003. Cheltenham,
UK, IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (2003)
Gibbins J, Crane R (2004) Principles and performance
limits for integrating amine scrubbing with coal and gas fired
power plants. 6th International CO2 Capture Network,
Department of Chemical Engineering, NTNU, Trondheim,
Norway, 8-9 March 2004. Cheltenham, UK, IEA Greenhouse
Gas R&D Programme (2004)
Goodall P M (1981) The efficient use of steam. Guildford,
UK. Westbury House, IPC Business Press Limited (1981)
Haines M R (1999) Producing electrical energy from natural
gas using a solid oxide fuel cell. Patent WO 99/10945,
pp 1-14 (1999)
Hannemann F, Koestlin B, Zimmermann G, Morehead H,
Pena F G (2003) Pushing forward IGCC technology at
Siemens. In: Gasification Technologies Conference, San
Francisco, CA, USA, 12-15 Oct 2003. Gasification
Technologies Council, USA (2003)
Haupt G, Zimmermann G, Pruschek R, Oeljeklaus G
(2003) IGCC - the best choice for producing low-CO2 power.
In: 6th international conference on greenhouse gas control
technologies: GHGT-6, Kyoto, Japan, 1-4 Oct 2002. Elsevier
Science Ltd (Pergamon), Oxford, UK, ed Gale J and Kaya Y,
Vol II, pp 1063-1068 (2003)
Henderson C (2003a) Clean coal technologies. CCC/74,
London, UK, IEA Clean Coal Centre, 42 pp (Oct 2003)
Henderson C (2003b) Clean coal technologies roadmaps.
CCC/75, London, UK, IEA Clean Coal Centre, 39 pp
(Oct 2003)
Holt N, Booras G, Todd D (2003) Summary of recent IGCC
studies of CO2 capture for sequestration. In: Gasification
Technologies Conference, San Francisco, CA, USA, 12-15
Oct 2003. Gasification Technologies Council, USA (2003)
Hooper M (2003) Waste coal to ultra clean fuels applying
the Shell Coal Gasification Process. In: Gasification
Technologies Conference, San Francisco, CA, USA, 12-15
Oct 2003. Gasification Technologies Council, USA (2003)
Jannson S A (2003) Sustainable fossil fuels. In: First
international conference on gas turbine technologies,
Brussels, 10-11 July 2003 (2003)
Jensen V (2000) Experience gained from commissioning a
new 411MW coal-fired plant with advanced steam data. VGB
PowerTech; 80 (5); 54-59 (2000)
Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles
References
Jones R M (2002) Reducing CO2 emission by hydrogen
IGCC power plants. In: Gasification Technologies
Conference, San Francisco, CA, USA, 28 Oct 2002.
Gasification Technologies Council, USA (2002)
Judkins R R, Burchell T D (2002) Gas separations based on
electrical swing adsorption. In: 27th International technical
conference on coal utilization and fuel systems, Clearwater,
FL, USA, 4-7 Mar 2002. Gaithersburg, MD, USA, Coal
Technology Association, CD-ROM, pp 247-255 (2002)
Juniper L A, Pohl J H (1996) Impact of coal properties on
power generation costs. In: CRC for black coal utilisation
presents a practical workshop on impact of coal quality on
thermal coal utilisation, Brisbane, Australia, 1-4 Sep 1996.
Callaghan, NSW, Australia, CRC for Black Coal Utilisation,
pp 1-10 (1996)
Kato M, Moniwa S (2004) Developments of Toshiba’s
Lithium Silicate solid CO2 Absorption studies. 6th
International CO2 Capture Network, Department of Chemical
Engineering, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway, 8-9 March 2004.
Cheltenham, UK, IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme
(2004)
Kirmse D, Lysk S, Kather A, Scheffknecht G (2000)
Operating experience with the two 800 MW steam generators
in power plant Schwarze Pumpe. VGB PowerTech; 80 (6);
12-20 (2000)
Kjær S (1990) Coaldust-fired power station unit with
advanced water/steam process. VGB Kraftwerkstechnik;
70 (3); 176-182 (1990)
Kjær S (1993) The future 400 MW ELSAM units in Aalborg
and Skærbæk, Denmark. VGB Kraftwerkstechnik; 73 (11);
803-810 (1993)
Kjær S (2003) Review of supercritical power plant
technology. Clean Coal Technology Roadmap Workshop,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 20–21 Mar 2003. Canada, Natural
Resources Canada. Available from:
http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/es/etb/cetc/combustion/cctrm/pdfs/skj
ær_super_critical_power_plant_technology.pdf 28 pp (2003)
Kromhaut J, Goudappel E, Pechtl P (2001) Economic
optimization of the cooling water flow of a 540 MWel coal
fired power plant using thermodynamic simulation. VGB
PowerTech; 81 (11); 43-46 (2001)
Kuchonthara P, Tsutsumi A, Bhattacharya S (2001).
Combination of thermochemical recuperative coal
gasification combined cycle and fuel cell using brown coal.
In: 38th Coal Science Conference, Senoki, Japan, 13-14 Nov
2001, pp 223-226 (2001)
Logan T M, Nah U-H (2002) Tanguin 5 and 6: Korea’s first
ultrasupercritical units. Modern Power Systems; 22 (10);
23-25 (Oct 2002)
Lorey H (2003) Supercritical scenario. World Coal; 12 (8);
13-15 (Aug 2003)
Luby P, Susta M R (2002) Steam power plants - New wave
of supercriticality. In: POWER-GEN Europe 2002, 11-13 Jun
2002, Milan, Italy. PennWell, CDROM (2002)
Luby P (2003) Supercritical systems. Modern Power
Systems; 23 (8); 27-32 (Aug 2003)
Mathieu Ph, Demaret F (2001) Integration of a high
temperature fuel cell (SOFC) in a Near zero-CO2 emission
power cycle. In: POWER-GEN Europe 2001: Environmental
issues - CO2 management, PennWell, CDROM (2001)
McDaniel J E, Hornick M (2003) Polk Power Station - 7th
commercial year of operation. In: Gasification Technologies
45
References
Conference, San Francisco, CA, USA, 12-15 Oct 2003.
Gasification Technologies Council, USA (2003)
McDonald M, and Palkes M (1999) A design study for the
application of CO2/O2 combustion to an existing 300 MW
coal-fired boiler. In: Proceedings of Combustion Canada 99
Conference - Combustion and Global Climate Change,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada (May 1999)
Méndez-Vigo, I (2004) Operational experience of the
Puertollano 330 MW IGCC power plant. Available from:
http://www.assocarboni.it/documenti/convegni%20assocarbon
i/Relazioni%20CCT%202002/Sala%20Spartivent
o/221002/11.00/01%20Mendez-Vigo.pdf 18 pp (accessed
2004)
Mimura T, Matsumoto K, Iijima M, Mitsuoka S (2001)
Development and application of flue gas carbon dioxide
recovery technology. In: Proceedings of the 5th international
conference on greenhouse gas control technologies: GHGT-5,
Cairns, Qld, Australia, 13-16 Aug 2000. CSIRO Publishing,
Collingwood, Vic, Australia, ed Williams D J, Durie R A,
McMullan P, Paulson C A J, Smith A, pp 138-142 (2001)
Mimura T, Satsumi S, Iijima M, Mitsuoka S (1998)
Development on Energy Saving Technology for Flue Gas
Carbon Dioxide Recovery by the Chemical Absorption
Method and Steam System in Power Plant. In: Proceedings of
the Fourth International Conference on Greenhouse Gas
Control Technologies, Interlaken, Switzerland, 30 Aug - 2
Sep 1998, pp 71-76 (1998)
Modern Power Systems (2000) Enfield Energy Centre GT26
first to 265 MWe. Modern Power Systems; 20 (4) 35-37 (Apr
2000)
Modern Power Systems (2002) GE’s new machines aim for
better performance. Modern Power Systems; 22 (9); 24-25
(Sep 2002)
Moreea-Taha R (2002) Materials development for coal,
biomass and waste fuel plants. CCC/61, London, UK, IEA
Clean Coal Centre, 58 pp (Jul 2002)
NETL (2000) British Gas/Lurgi gasifier IGCC base cases.
PED-IGCC-98-004
September 1998, Revision June 2000. National Energy
Technology Laboratory, US Department of Energy. Available
from:
http://www.netl.doe.gov/coalpower/gasification/system/bgl3x
_20.pdf 47 pp (2000)
O’Keefe L F, Griffiths J, Weissman R C, East N, De Puy
R A, Wainwright J M (2001) An IGCC Design for CO2
Capture. In: 18th Annual Pittsburgh Coal Conference,
Newcastle, NSW, Australia, 3-7 Dec 2001. Session 14:
Gasification: Technology Advances-I. Pittsburgh, PA, USA,
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Coal Conference, CD-
ROM (Dec 2001)
Prasad R, Chen J, van Hassel B, Sirman J, White J (2001)
Advances in oxygen transport membrane technology for
integrated oxygen production in IGCC. In: 18th Annual
Pittsburgh Coal Conference, Newcastle, NSW, Australia, 3-7
Dec 2001. Session 39: Synthesis Gas Cleaning-II. Pittsburgh,
PA, USA, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Coal
Conference, CD-ROM (Dec 2001)
Pruschek R, Haupt G, Zimmermann G, Ullrich N (1999)
Are integrated coal gasification combined-cycle power plants
competitive? VGB PowerTech; 79 (5); 56-60 (1999)
Pruschek R (2000) Improvement of integrated gasification
combined cycle (IGCC) power plants starting from the state
46
of the art (Puertollano). Summary Report Contract
JOF3-CT95-0004. European Commission, Brussels, Belgium.
Available from:
http://www.euro-cleancoal.net/php3/pdf.php3?id=66 24 pp
(2000)
Putman R E, Walker R (2000) Proper maintenance
practices involving condenser cleaning and in-leakage
inspection. In: International conference on power station
maintenance 2000, Oxford, UK, 18-20 Sep 2000. London,
UK, Institution of Mechanical Engineers Conference
Transaction 2000-7. Professional Engineering Publishing Ltd,
Bury St Edmunds, UK, pp 161-170 (2000)
Quayle J P (1984) Kempe’s Engineers Year-Book, 89th
edition. Editor: Quayle J P. London, UK, Morgan- Grampian
Book Publishing Co. Ltd (1986)
Rousaki K, Couch G R (2000) Advanced clean coal
technologies and low value coals. CCC/39, London, UK, IEA
Clean Coal Centre, 76 pp (Nov 2000)
Saito M, Harada M (2003) Coal research and development
in Japan (in the field of coal utilization). Coal and Safety; 22;
22-36 (Mar 2003)
Sander H-J, Daradimos G, Hirschfelder H (2003)
Operating results of the BGL gasifier at Schwarze Pumpe. In:
Gasification Technologies Conference, San Francisco, CA,
USA, 12-15 Oct 2003. Gasification Technologies Council,
USA (2003)
Sasatsu H, Misawa N, Kobori K, Iritani J (2002) Hot gas
particulate cleaning technology applied for PFBC/IGFC - the
ceramic tube filter (CTF) and metal filter. In: 5th
International symposium on gas cleaning at high
temperature, session 1: particulate cleanup applications,
17-20 Sep 2002. National Energy Technology Laboratory, US
Department of Energy. Available from:
http://www.netl.doe.gov Conference Proceedings, NETL
Publications 2002, 14 pp (2002)
Scheffknecht G, Palkes M, Weissinger G, Seeber J, Banas
J M, Kessel W (2003) Clean coal combustion for India:
circulating fluid bed and advanced supercritical technologies.
In: Power-Gen India and Central Asia exhibition and
conference, 14-16 Jan 2003. PennWell Corporation, Upshire,
Essex, UK, pp 1-39 (2003)
Scheibner B, Wolters C (2002) Schumacher hot gas filter
long-term operating experience in the NUON POWER
Buggenum IGCC power plant. In: 5th International
symposium on gas cleaning at high temperature, session 1:
particulate cleanup applications, 17-20 Sep 2002. National
Energy Technology Laboratory, US Department of Energy.
Available from: http://www.netl.doe.gov Conference
Proceedings, NETL Publications 2002, 10 pp (2002)
Schimmoller B K (2003) Boiler industry surviving rough
waters. Power Engineering; 30-42 (Feb 2003)
Scott D H (2001) Improving the competitiveness of next
generation coal-fired plants. CCC/52, London, UK, IEA Coal
Research, 48 pp (Sep 2001)
Shimomura Y (2003) The CO2 wheel: a revolutionary
approach to carbon dioxide capture. Modern Power Systems;
23 (1); 15-17 (Jan 2003)
Siemens (2001) Benson boilers for maximum cost-
effectiveness in power plants. Siemens AG, Erlangen,
Germany, 20 pp (2001)
Siemens (2004) Benson boiler - a key to higher efficiency.
Siemens AG, Erlangen, Germany. Available from:
IEA CLEAN COAL CENTRE
 References

http://www.powergeneration.siemens.com/en/bensonboiler/ke http://www.lanl.gov/projects/cctc/resources/pdfs/wabsh/Waba
y/index.cfm, 2 pp (2004) shPPS.pdf 16 pp (Jul 2002)
Slimane R B, Akpolat O M, Lau F S, Pandya K, Newby R US DOE (2002c) Tampa Electric Polk Power Station
A, Lippert T E, Jain S C (2002) Deep cleaning of coal- integrated combined cycle gasification project. Final
derived fuel gases at high temperature in the ultra clean Technical Report to US Department of Energy Office of
process. In: 27th International technical conference on coal Fossil Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory.
utilization and fuel systems, Clearwater, FL, USA, 4-7 Mar Morgantown, WV, USA. US DOE Clean Coal Technology
2002. Gaithersburg, MD, USA, Coal Technology Association, Compendium. Available from:
CD-ROM, pp 1033-1044 (2002) http://www.lanl.gov/projects/cctc/whatsnew.html as:
Slimane R B, Williams B E (2002) New ZnO-based http://www.lanl.gov/projects/cctc/resources/pdfs/tampa/Tamp
regenerable sulfur sorbents for fluid-bed/transport reactor aFinal.pdf 260 pp (Aug 2002)
applications. Journal Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Veenhuizen D, Anderson J (2000) PFBC goes commercial.
Research; 41 (23); 5676-5685 (Nov 2002) Modern Power Systems; 20 (3); 35-38 (Mar 2000)
Smith D (2000) Horizontal boilers make 700ºC steam Viswanathan R, Swindeman R W, Purgert R (2002)
economic. Modern Power Systems; 20 (5); 37-41 (May 2000) Materials for ultra supercritical coal-fired power plants. In:
Smith D J (2001) Steam turbines remain the workhorse for 27th International technical conference on coal utilization
power generation. Power Engineering; 44-46 (Aug 2001) and fuel systems, Clearwater, FL, USA, 4-7 Mar 2002.
Stein V E, Juwono E, Demetri E P (2002) The impact of Gaithersburg, MD, USA, Coal Technology Association,
ITM oxygen on economics for coal-based IGCC. In: 27th CD-ROM, pp 257-272 (2002)
International technical conference on coal utilization and Welford G, Panesar R S, Read A, Chamberlain R, Effert
fuel systems, Clearwater, FL, USA, 4-7 Mar 2002. M, Ghiribelli L, Toste de Azevedo J L, Toledo R (2002)
Gaithersburg, MD, USA, Coal Technology Association, Innovative supercritical boilers for near term global markets.
CD-ROM, pp 345-356 (2002) In: POWER-GEN Europe 2002, 11-13 Jun 2002, Milan, Italy.
Stultz S C, Kitto J B (1992) Steam - its generation and use, PennWell, CDROM (2002)
40th edition. Editors: Stultz S C, Kitto J B. Barberton, Ohio, Wilkinson M B, Simmonds M, Allam R J, White V (2003)
USA, The Babcock and Wilcox Company (1992) Oxy-fuel conversion of heaters and boilers for CO2 capture.
Suzuki E (2003) Operational experience at the 150 t/d In: 2nd annual conference on carbon sequestration, Virginia,
EAGLE gasification pilot plant. In: Gasification Technologies USA, (May 2003)
Conference, San Francisco, CA, USA, 12-15 Oct 2003. Wolters C (2003) Operating experience at the ‘Willem
Gasification Technologies Council, USA (2003) Alexander Centrale’. In: Gasification Technologies
Tan Y, Douglas M, Chui E (2002) A review of findings in Conference, San Francisco, CA, USA, 12-15 Oct 2003.
oxy-fuel combustion at the CANMET vertical combustor Gasification Technologies Council, USA (2003)
research facility. In: American Flame Research Committee World Coal (2004) Coal-fired power plants. World Coal; 13
Meeting: Fuel selection issues for industrial combustion (1); 57-61 (Jan 2004)
processes, Ottawa, Canada, 8-10 May 2002. IJmuiden,
Netherlands, International Flame Research Foundation or
Houston, USA, American Flame Research Committee,
CD-ROM, 12 pp (2002)
Tsuji K (2004) Operation and maintenance status of the
World’s largest PFBC plant. Karita Thermal Power Station,
Japan, Kyushu Electric Power Company, Inc. Available from:
http://eneken.ieej.or.jp/japac/document/1810320120411_jp.pd
f 32 pp (2004)
US DOE (2000) Wabash River Coal Gasification
Repowering Project Final Technical Report DE-FC21-
92MC29310. Prepared for US Department of Energy Office
of Fossil Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory.
Morgantown, WV, USA. US DOE Clean Coal Technology
Compendium. Available from:
http://www.lanl.gov/projects/cctc/resources/library/bibliograp
hy/demonstration/aepg/baepgig_wabriv.html as:
http://www.lanl.gov/projects/cctc/resources/pdfs/wabsh/Final
%20_Report.pdf 358 pp (Aug 2000)
US DOE (2002a) Clean coal technology demonstration
program: program update. Washington, DC, USA, United
States Department of Energy (US DOE) 357 pp (Jul 2002)
US DOE (2002b) Wabash River coal gasification repowering
project. Project performance summary. Clean Coal
Technology Demonstration Program, US Department of
Energy. Washington, DC, USA. US DOE Clean Coal
Technology Compendium. Available from:
http://www.lanl.gov/projects/cctc/whatsnew.html as:

Understanding coal-fired power plant cycles 47