Fluidized bed combustion in praxis

Operation at deregulated energy markets emphasize utilities competitiveness in power generation. This means power plant investment cost as well as operation and maintenance costs must be competitive to ensure economical performance. Improvements in competitiveness can also be achieved investing to modern combustion technology and this way improve power generation efficiency (lower fuel consumption). Other means to improve cost effectiveness are optimisation of daily operation and process control system but also improving fuel flexibility if feasible (fuel price). The other need for utilities in the future is of course environmental issues like reduction of CO₂ emissions in particular.

As known fluidized bed combustion offers many advantages that might be needed at future energy markets. These are superior fuel and operation flexibility, multifuel capability, environmental performance with inherently low NO_x emissions due favourable combustion conditions and cost effective sulphur reduction applying in-furnace SO₂ capture. These advantages makes fluidized bed combustion attractive alternative power generation in the future. The current trends for development of the technology are discussed in this paper.