Estimation of Performance Variation of Coal Fired Boilers Cofired With Biomass: Development of a Predicting Tool

Biomass cofiring in existing coal fired boilers has emerged as one of the most prospective technologies in order to address voluntary reduction of green house gases and other emissions, potential portfolio standards, customer service etc. within the context of deregulations. Pilot plant test results have confirmed the potential of biomass cofiring with coal for commercial use. However, being a new and developing technology, there is hardly any tool available for estimation of variation in performance of an existing coal fired boiler due to its retrofitting for biomass cofiring. A predicting tool is developed to estimate this performance variation using available information of pilot plant test results in literature or from data of plant operating with biomass. In order to incorporate future available information, this is developed in a flexible environment of Model Development Kit (MDK) of IPSEpro, a commercially available heat and mass balance program. Development of the models for this predicting tool as well as its limitations and possible future improvement has been discussed in this paper. Some results regarding estimation of change in efficiency, emissions and associated costs using this developed predicting tool has been presented.