PLANT ENERGY OPERATING EXPENSES USING NON-TRADITIONAL FUELS FOR CHP SYSTEMS

Abstract

This paper compares the annual energy operating expenses for a typical combined heat and power (CHP) plant operation using non-traditional fuels with natural gas fired systems. The rationale for choosing to use fuels other than natural gas is because of availability of the fuel or the desire to reduce green house gas emissions. Specifically, we will look at the energy operating costs for a large plant with thermal and electrical loads. We used the Department of Energy Steam System Assessment Tool (SSAT) with single steam boiler and three separate steam headers to model the system. For our analysis, the current pricing and operating efficiency for the fuels including natural gas, #2 fuel oil, #6 low sulphur fuel, #6 high sulphur fuel, eastern coal, western coal, green wood, and petroleum coke are considered. We also attempt to estimate the annual air pollutants from CO 2 , SO 2 , and NO x . The amounts of the pollutants will not scale with any other combustion processes as the overall combustion efficiencies will be different. For the case of petroleum coke, we estimated the pollutants based upon western coal using the higher High Heating Value.