Luminant Energy to Restart Three Coal-Fired Generating Units in Texas

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Luminant Energy (Dallas, Texas) will restart three Texas coal-fired power-generating units that had been shut down last year for economic reasons. The units at Luminant Energy's Monticello and Martin Lake power plants are capable of generating 1,979 megawatts and were shut down due to low electrical market prices last year. With the recent cold weather and increases in natural gas and associated market prices, the generating units will resume operations.

With demand for natural gas by the electrical power industry expected to rise about 3.1% per year, along with the associated cost increases, coal remains a viable part of the U.S. generation mix in order to address regional electricity needs and to make up for lags in renewable energy, such as solar and wind, which need backup from conventional energy sources.

For related information see January 24, 2014, article - Black & Veatch Sees Doubling of Natural Gas Use by U.S. Power Industry

Although much has been written about the decline of coal power generation, plants with upgraded emission controls are still a viable and important part of the North American power mix. Coal-fired power plants still supply about 38% of U.S power generation, and although natural gas is expected to surpass coal by 2035, the fuel remains an important part of total electrical generation capacity.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) (Golden, Colorado) recently released a report, which studied whether coal power plants could become flexible enough to remain in operation in the coming years; specifically, whether the plants are cost effective enough to operate in low load (below 40%) and cycling mode in response to changes in renewable energy generating plant, such as solar or wind, electrical output.

The NREL report concluded that with limited hardware modifications and significant modifications to operational practices, these power plants could remain viable.

Cycling of any electrical generating unit can cause increased wear to the turbine such as thermal fatigue, cracked rotors, boiler tube failures, condenser tube leakage and related stress and corrosion, increased wear to pumps and valves as well as water and steam piping, which increase maintenance costs as well as decrease efficiency as these units are engineered and designed to run at the maximum output for extended periods.

The report goes on to state strategic modifications, proactive inspections and training programs, as well as operational changes, can mitigate the extent of forced outages and major capital investment in plant equipment repairs due to these changes. Additional operational modifications include natural cooling, economizer inlet header monitoring, modified layup procedures (draining & nitrogen blankets), pressure part management, boiler and turbine temperature monitoring, 24-hour water chemistry maintenance and environmental controls maintenance due to cycling operations.

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