Using technology to improve power plant efficiency

ELECTRICITY is something we often take for granted, but more than a billion people do not have access to electricity today – that is 18 times the population of South Africa or 17 percent of the world’s population. And another 40 percent do not have access to reliable power.

This challenge is greatest in rapidly growing economies where providing energy access to citizens, as well as industry, is often a government priority.

The South African government, for example, has been working on a variety of new programmes over the past two decades, including renewable energy solutions such as solar and wind farms, as well as nuclear power stations and hydroelectric pumped-storage facilities.

Still, greenhouse gas regulation is becoming more stringent and many cities are experiencing serious problems with air pollution. Governments face the test of balancing the need for electricity with the need to minimise the environmental impact of power generation.

Fuel sources

On a macro level, the world needs roughly 3 percent more electricity each year and forecasts show that 2 500 gigawatts of power are needed to sustain that growth. To meet this need, a mix of fuel sources are required. With almost 900-billion tons in reserve, coal plays a vital part in the energy generation mix globally.

Today, 40 percent of the world’s electricity is produced from coal and it is predicted that this will decrease only slightly to 30 percent over the next decade with 95 percent of the global demand coming from fast-growing economies in India, China, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Coal is often affordable and available and provides a reliable source of energy in the fast-growing regions where new generation capacity is critical. But to meet the demands of the future, efficient technology that lowers emissions is needed.

To meet the need for smarter and cleaner energy, organisations must aim to achieve higher efficiency rates within power plants.

Reducing carbon dioxide (CO emissions and leveraging air quality control systems to remove nitrogen oxide (NOx) and sulphur oxide (SOx) particulate matters from coal-fired power plants is paramount.

Plant optimisation

One of the ways we can clean up energy is through leveraging digital technology to improve the efficiency of power plants. By linking power plants to a cloud, which enables analysis and plant optimisation, we can achieve even better performance via greater efficiencies and improved reliability.

It is estimated that this type of technology can provide an additional one to two points of efficiency or 6 megawatts to 9MW more power in a 600MW plant.

The opportunity to reduce emissions and costs is enormous as these technologies can be both retrofitted, as well as built into new power plants. If all existing coal plants achieved just 40 percent efficiency, the impact on CO emissions would be a considerable 2 gigatons annually.

The impact of 50 percent efficiency across coal power plants are not just game changing; it is a necessary evolution of the way we power industries and homes.