Influence of Biomass Co-combustion on Heating Surfaces Thermal Efficiency

Pulverized coal-fired (PCF) boilers were first and foremost intended to fire pulverized hard or brown coal. However, biomass co-firing has become a fairly common practice in the Polish power generation system and many existing boilers have been modernized to serve this purpose. This paper presents calculations of the coefficient of thermal efficiency of the boiler heating surfaces and of the time needed for complete reconstruction of deposits on the second-stage steam reheater (RHII) of an OP-380 boiler with the output of 380×10³ kg/h. The boiler was equipped with a purpose-designed installation of direct feeding of biomass. The main co-fired fuels were wood and sunflower husk pellets. Intense formation of deposits on the steam reheater tubes and problems related to a reduction in the diameters of the tubes were identified during the power unit operation.