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Ormat Energy Converters Proven Power from Cement Plant Waste Heat
By michal Created 2010-03-11 10:04

ORMAT ENERGY CONVERTERS PROVEN POWER FROM CEMENT PLANT WASTE HEAT
by David Citrin Ormat In this presentation we shall attempt to demonstrate the applicability of ORMAT's well-proven organic Rankine cycle (OEC) technology to efficient and cost-effective heat recovery for power generation from exhaust air alone and for both clinker cooler air and preheater gases in one system. Several heat recovery systems using 400'C high temperature preheater gases as well as 300'C clinker cooler air enabled a conventional steam based cycle to operate. In some cases these systems are still operating in the industry. However, because of continuous improvements in cement production technology and, more importantly, due to major improvements in the grate cooler technology, the potential efficiencies of the conventional steam cycles in cement applications have dropped significantly. The need to replace the conventional steam cycle in the heat recovery systems of the cement industry led to the introduction of the organic Rankine cycle to the industry. Having been proven reliable over a long period in geothermal power production, a 1.5 MW air cooled ORMAT Energy Converter was installed for the first time in June 1999 at the Heidelberger Zement plant in Lengfurt. A report on one year's performance of the ORMAT Energy Converter (OEC) system at the HZ Lengfurt Plant will be given, which provides clear evidence that this breakthrough project in the utilization of low grade cement plant waste heat has been a resounding success from performance, reliability and operational costs aspects. I shall also describe the ORMAT Combined Cycle OEC system which enables efficient utilization of higher temperature waste heat sources, such as exist in 4 or 5 stage preheaters, in a simple reliable process. ORMAT is fully prepared to offer clients full turnkey projects and take total responsibility for the project. In addition, ORMAT is able to offer clients financing packages and energy service schemes, subject to the project specifics and client's requirements and capabilities.

INTRODUCTION TO ORMAT AND ITS TECHNOLOGY

The ORMAT Group was established 35 years ago with a mission of renewable energy, exploitation of lowgrade heat, and providing power to remote areas. The basic technology developed at ORMAT over 30 years ago was organic Rankine cycle based power units, which have remained the core technology of the company, although the scale and applications of the power unit have been considerably expanded. ORMAT began producing power units of over 300 kW scale in the early 1980's, originally for industrial waste heat and in 1984 entered the geothermal power field, which grew to become the company's core business. Since 1984, ORMAT has built and installed over 240 OEC's from 300 kW to 8,000 kW each and today has over 45 geothermal and waste heat power plants installed in 20 countries totalling approximately 700 MW. ORMAT today is a vertically integrated project company which develops and invests in power projects and operates power plants while also designing, engineering, manufacturing and installing the equipment and balance of plant. ORMAT has arranged project financing for its projects in the amount of about US$ 1.2 billion since 1987. In the early 1990's ORMAT developed it Geothermal Combined Cycle Unit for coping with high temperature geothermal resources and now has the record of producing power from both the lowest and highest temperature geothermal resources. In July 1999 the world cement industry's first heat recovery system for power generation using clinker cooler air was inaugurated at the Lengfurt Plant of Heidelberger Zement A.G. This was a 1.5 MW ORMAT OEC and the highlights of the first year's operation are described below. The fundamental principle of the organic Rankine cycle of the OEC is that the working fluid driving the turbine is an organic fluid rather than steam. The organic fluid has a much lower boiling point than water, so far lower temperature heat sources can generate organic vapor which then expands into a turbine, condenses and is recycled. The organic turbines are back pressure type and operate at low revolutions, and are consequently highly reliable, requiring minimal maintenance. Historical records of the OEC's indicate a high average availability of around 97%. The OEC units used for either waste heat applications or geothermal applications are identical in technology, configuration and operating parameters.

DESCRIPTION OF THE OEC SYSTEM FOR LOW TEMPERATURE CEMENT PLANT WASTE HEAT
The OEC system for cement plant low temperature waste heat, such as for clinker cooler exhaust air (which are typically in the range of 220'C to 300'C or for 6 stage preheater gases which are typically just below 300'C is seen in the attached "Typical Scheme of Waste Heat Conversion." The exhaust air/gases of each waste heat source enter into a Waste Heat Recovery Oil Heater where they exchange heat with thermo-oil. The heated thermo-oil from each heat exchanger flows into a common thermo-oil loop into the vaporizer of a single ORMAT Energy Converter (OEC) where it exchanges heat with the organic working fluid of the OEC. The high pressure vapor of the organic fluid expands as it passes through the OEC turbine and is then condensed by air cooled condensers and recycled by a cycle pump. The cooled thermo-oil is similarly recycled.

COMBINED CYCLE OPTION FOR HIGH TEMPERATURE PREHEATER GASES AND/OR DIESEL GENERATOR EXHAUST PLUS CLINKER COOLER AIR
In the case of 4 or 5 stage preheater, gas temperatures of 350'C- 400'C would be typical. For such heat sources combined with the lower temperature clinker cooler air, ORMAT proposes utilizing the combined cycle it has developed for high temperature geothermal applications. This configuration is depicted in Figure 3. In the basic configuration, there are two independent heat transfer loops. The first will be from the preheater gases heat recovery unit and its vapor will enter the high pressure "topping" turbine. It will exhaust at positive pressure into the vaporizer of the low pressure "bottoming" organic turbine. The thermo-oil heated by the clinker cooler air heat exchanger will enter the preheater of the OEC. The two turbines are on a single shaft and have a single generator. A comparative analysis of the Combined Cycle's output compared to existing systems using the high temperature sources indicates that ORMAT Combined Cycle will provide comparable output figures with a considerably simpler, easier to operate, and more cost-effective system. For diesel generator exhaust of around 330'C this configuration will likely be more effective than the single turbine OEC described earlier. In general, decisions on which cycle to adopt will depend on the actual temperatures, comparative flow rates, composition of the gases, etc.

ONE YEAR'S PERFORMANCE RECORD OF THE 1.5 MW ORMAT UNIT AT HEIDELBERGER ZEMENT'S LENGFURT PLANT: General Description:
The Lengfurt plant which has just celebrated its 100th aniversary operates a production facility built by KHD in 1970. The high temperature ESP on the clinker cooler air was supplied by FLS in 1994. The clinker production uses a dry-process line with a 5% Cl bypass facility. The kiln exhaust gases pass through a 4-stage calciner and are released at an average temperature of 350'C. The clinker leaves the kiln at a temperature of up to 1450'C and is cooled in a 3-stage grate cooler to a temperature of approximately 100'C. More than 60 MW of the recovered energy in the grate cooler (equivalent to ~ 70 % of the released heat from the clinker) is recirculated to the kiln as combustion air (secondary air). Tertiary air at 300'C and vent air at 275'C, filtered in the hot ESP, are released to the atmosphere without being used. Table 1: Summary of the technical data of the clinker production facility Installed production capacity T/d 3150 Kiln dimension 1 x 0 m 78 x 12 Grate clinker cooler type horizontal Manufacturer CPAG Installed cooling air flow capacity Nm3/hr 250 000 Cooler air filter type ESP, horizontal

Max. design cooler air temperature 'C 400 Max. dust content in cooler air after filter Mg/Nm3 50 Operational dust content after filter Mg/Nm3 20 Main fuel (Petcoke) % ~80 Alternative fuel % ~20 Energy required for clinker production Thermal MWh/y ~670,000 Electrical MWh/y ~ 48,000 Yearly operating period Hr ~ 7,000 Energy required for raw material preparation % 56 Raw material humidity early average % 2.7 Table 2: Summary of the main technical data of the OEC OEC rated performance MW 1.5 OEC maximum generated output MW 1.55 Generato voltage/frequency V/Hz 690/50 Generator type Asynchronous Rotating speed (turbine) rpm 3000 Rotating speed (generator) rpm 3000 Generator cooling Air OEC working fluid Pentane Charge in the OEC m3 6 OEC condenser type Induced forced air cooled condenser Forced air flow through condenser m3/s 470 OEC internal power consumtpion kW ~210 Expected operational availability % 98 Expected CO2 savings t/a 7600 Generation of own power demand % 12 OEC design life Y 25 Table 3: Summary of the technical data of the air/oil heat exchanger and oil loop Air flow to air/oil heat exchanger Nm3/hr 150,000 Maximum recoverable hot air flow Nm3/hr 183,600 Dust content mg/Nm3 20 Air inlet temperature (design point) 'C 275 Air inlet temperature maximum 'C 450 Pressure drop (air side) mbar 7 Available bypass option on air side % 100 Heating surface m2 2730 Recovered heat flow at design point MW 8.37 Surface heat losses % ~1.5 Maximal recoverable heat flow from cooler MW 9.8 Average under design of the heat recovery system % ~20 Thermal oil type - Mobiltherm 594 Design working temperature average/maximum 'C 230/250

Oil flow @ 85'C m3/hr 106 Oil charge in the system m3 25 Available bypass option on oil side % 100

Summary of First Year's Performance:OEC design

The first year's operation of the OEC heat recovery system may be summarized as follows: 1. The implementation of the OEC into the cement manufacturing process was completely successful. 2. Plant availabilities of above 98% were achieved- similar to those set by the OEC in the geothermal power generation. 3. Experiments with the system have shown that the system was still performing well at off-design conditions, being capable of generating approximately 17% more power than defined under the design point operating conditions. 4. The OEC was proven capable of matching its output virtually exactly to the fluctuations in the temperature of the clinker cooler air. (See Figure 4). 5. Operation and maintenance costs have proven to be negligible. The spare part utilization (used ~$3000) and the rate of motive fluid loss (0%) have been proven to be far below the expected values. 6. No additional staff needed to be hired for operation of the system. 7. The user friendliness and simplicity of the system operation have resulted in no disruption of the operator's tasks for clinker and cement production. The capability of remote monitoring of the OEC performance by ORMAT engineers facilitated the optimization of the operation of the system. 8. Savings of electrical energy have been determined as follows: Total electricity demand for clinker production 4.2 MW Own generation by the OEC on average 1.1 MW Savings 26% Savings of CO2 7,600 t/y

TOTAL PROJECT APPROACH FOR INDIA

ORMAT in the course of its development in the geothermal industry, has become a "total project" company. It designs, engineers, manufactures, constructs, installs, operates, maintains and finances the projects it undertakes. In its cement waste heat recovery activities, ORMAT is adopting a similar approach. It can offer Indian cement plants a total project. ORMAT will take overall responsibility for execution of each project, should the client so request. It has organized local manufacturing of the heat exchangers ("boilers") and installation of the plant, under its overall responsibility. Obviously, this aspect is critical to the economic viability of any potential project.

FINANCING AND ECONOMIC VIABILITY:

There is no clear cut general answer to the issue of economic viability of cement plant waste heat projects. Every case must be studied on the basis of its own specific conditions.

The parameters to be considered are obviously: * Flow rates * Temperature * Number of heat sources per power unit * Dust amount * Site conditions * Alternative power cost * Ability of plant to take advantage of the depreciation benefit In very general terms, our experience in India to date leads us to believe that plants smaller than 3000 tons per day are unlikely to have economical solutions, unless the alternative cost of power is extremely high. For plants with lower temperature clinker cooler air, say 250'C and lower, the economics are more difficult because the heat transfer area of the heat exchangers is correspondingly higher. Boilers and heat exchangers for the dust laden gases must also necessarily be relatively expensive, so the task is not easy. Since energy efficiency, and thereby utilization of waste heat, has been declared as a national policy objective, it is difficult to fathom why there are no customs duty exemptions, such as exist for renewable energy. It is incumbent on the industry to make every effort to lobby government to correct this obvious flaw. Until such time, however, we would hope that attractive financing schemes could be made available, which would in many cases be the deal-making or deal-breaking factor. ORMAT is able to offer clients a variety of financing programs, including ordinary suppliers credit, Build Lease Transfer, and, under certain circumstances, Build Own Operate Transfer. In this context, we are pleased to advise the cement industry that ORMAT and the International Finance Corp. (IFC), who are partners in the 24 MW Zunil, Guatemala, geothermal project, are currently exploring together the possibilities of a joint venture for the waste heat field in India, with a view towards providing clients either with direct financing or entering into energy service contracts.

CONCLUSIONS:
ORMAT has demonstrated the applicability of the organic Rankine cycle to generating power from cement plant low temperature clinker cooler exhaust air through its breakthrough Heidelberger Zement 1.5 MW project. After one year of operation, the OEC system has proven its high reliability and low maintenance costs, such as have already been proven in other applications with over 240 similar ORMAT power units. ORMAT has also proposed another well-proven version of the OEC, its combined cycle, suitable for higher temperature preheater gases in combination with the clinker cooler air. It is prepared to execute projects in India on a full turnkey basis, taking responsibility for overall system performance. Furthermore, it is prepared to offer clients medium and long term financing according to the requirements and capabilities of each client and the particulars of each project.

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