The use of steam dryer with heat recovery to decrease the minimum exhaust flue gas temperature and increase the net efficiency of thermal power plant

Abstract

Net power plant efficiency is the ratio of exportable electrical power output to the product of fuel consumption rate and fuel heating value. Conventionally, power plants are designed to attain the maximum net power plant efficiency by using regenerative feed water heating, in which extracted steam from steam turbine is used to increase feed water temperature. An important factor that determines the net power plant efficiency is the temperature of flue gas exhausted from the power plant. Decreasing this temperature increases the net power plant efficiency. However, exhaust flue gas temperature should not be lower than the lower limit in order to avoid the corrosion resulting from condensation of sulfuric acid vapor in flue gas on heat exchanger tubes. The lower limit can be raised by reducing fuel moisture content and raising air temperature at boiler inlet. In this paper, it is proposed that low-pressure extracted steam should be used for fuel drying in steam dryer, and vapor released from steam dryer should be used for air heating in heat recovery air preheater. By doing so, the lower limit of exhaust flue gas temperature is decreased, and the net efficiency of the power plant is increased. A case study of a 600-MW lignite-fired power plant is used to demonstrate that the integration of steam dryer and heat recovery air preheater is economically justified.