Texas 412MW Coal-Fired Unit Continues Boiler Modifications to Reduce NOx Emissions

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). San Miguel Electric Cooperative Incorporated, a generation and transmission rural electric cooperative in the town of Christine, Atascosa county, Texas has been performing boiler modifications at the San Miguel Power Station (Plant 1000474) to reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions (PEC 01009338) since the spring of 2003. San Miguel is utilizing the services of environmental technology and equipment supplier Fuel-Tech N.V. (NASDAQ: FTEK) (Stamford, Connecticut) for the project.

San Miguel Unit 1 is a 1982 vintage lignite coal opposed-fired Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) Dry Bottom Boiler (3.054 MM lb/hr, 2600psig @ 1005F) that powers a 412 megawatt (MW) Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) steam turbine/generator. The original controls for NOx emission at the plant were low NOx burners, but to meet new state and federal air regulations Over Fired Air Ports were installed.

Future plans are to perform windbox modifications during the spring of 2004 to further reduce emissions. These two steps affect the air-to-fuel mixture helping to improve the combustion there by reducing emissions plus improving performance. The third step if needed will be installing ports for injections of ammonia into the combustion area this will cause a chemical reaction that will further reduce the NOx emissions. San Miguel intends to meet their NOx reduction goal no later than second quarter of 2005.