Saturday, September 21, 2019

KEPCO-Uhde - IGCC Plants for Electric Power Generation

Comparision with Conventional Plants


Solid feedstocks, such as coal, will continue to play an important role in power generation for the foreseeable future. Integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) technology offers an ideal method for cost effectively producing power from these feedstocks while offering substantial environmental benefits over other power generation technologies, such as reducing CO2, SOx, NOx and particles emissions. The environmental benefits can be improved even further by adding biomass materials to the feedstocks.

The supply and disposal flows of a conventional power plant are compared with those of an IGCC plant (see above). This comparison clearly shows how efficient and environment-friendly IGCC plants are.

ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions has designed and built PRENFLO® (PSG) gasification technology using a mixture of high-sulphur petroleum coke and high-ash Spanish coal as the feedstock at the world’s largest solid-feedstock-based IGCC plant in Puertollano, Spain.

This IGCC plant is based on a highly integrated system in which the total air for the air separation unit is taken from the gas turbine compressor. The plant can be divided into three main parts:
  • the gasification island, comprising the feed preparation unit, the PRENFLO® gasification unit, the air separation unit (ASU).
  • the power block, comprising the gas turbine, the heat recovery steam generator and the steam turbine
  • the gas treatment unit and a sulphur recovery unit

Strength of IGCC


The figures show the average environmental data for operation of the Puertollano plant with natural gas and petroleum coke/coal for the year 2006, and in addition the permissible limits under EU legislation.

IGCC technology allows for more effective CO2 removal and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) applications than conventional power plants with post-combustion CO2 removal.

KEPCO-Uhde Inc. is poised to build the largest IGCC power plant with KEPCO and is aiming to become a global front runner in Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle and Carbon Capture Storage which are strong in economics, efficiency and environment-friendliness. The sizes of these days IGCC plants with one PSG gasifier are in the range of 300 to over 450 MW net electricity production depending on customers needs. KEPCO-Uhde together with KEPCO and ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions aim their joint R&D to develop highly efficient IGCCs with an output of approx. 500 MW from one gasifier.


Source: KEPCO-Uhde Inc.