Companies Retrofit Steam Generation Power Plants

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--With the economic contraction seen in the past year and the uncertainty about the new administration's emission-controls legislation still in flux, power plant owners have looked for innovative ways to increase their load requirements while still addressing future financial uncertainties. To address these issues in the short term, companies are looking to spend money by retrofitting existing generation with the latest technologies to meet the electrical needs of their customers.

Converting existing simple cycle combustion turbine generation to combined cycle technology is one way of doing this. Installing a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) or a once through steam generator (OTSG) onto an existing combustion turbine and installing a steam turbine generator is a relatively cheap way to meet short-term load growth in a much shorter time compared to building a grassroot power plant or adding another generator to an existing plant.

The permitting, equipment orders, delivery and financial approvals take much less time to complete when upgrading an existing power facility compared to building a new facility from scratch. This can also increase the power plant's total megawatt capacity and increase the company bottom line in the short term, which helps down the road when the need to access credit for a new or larger generation facility is needed.

HRSGs and OTSGs are basically boilers that use the waste heat that is sent up the stack after the burning of fossil fuels in the combustion turbines. This wasted heat is used to create steam to run an additional turbine which, attached to a generator, produces additional electricity needed to address the increased load growth. This retrofit technology greatly increases the efficiency of the existing generation because more megawatts can be produced from the same fuel consumption.

HRSG's have the same equipment as a conventional boiler such as a drum to hold the water and the super heater section that is used to drive the steam turbine. However, an HRSG cannot start up as quickly as an OTSG, which does not have the drum feature and which can start creating superheated steam in a little less than 15 minutes. HRSG's also do not have dry run capability which OTSGs have. The tubes in an OTSG are made of an advanced metal alloy which allows them to maintain their strength and heat resistance without becoming brittle, but also adds to the initial costs. The HRSG has a much larger footprint equaling more materials and takes longer to install, 14-18 weeks compared to 4-6 weeks, and the maintenance and operational costs of the OTSG are smaller, because the technology is simpler, has fewer components and controls input/output points.

Opportunities to retrofit or upgrade existing generation have never been more cost effective than they are now, and utilities and merchant plant owners can still address load growth without large capital expenditures in this time of financial uncertainty.

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