Improving efficiency of boiler in power plant

1. Increasing the boiler efficiency by optimizing the combustion efficiency

Air pre-heater and economizer are heat transfer surfaces in which air temperature and water
temperature are raised by transferring heat from other media such as flue gas. Hot air is
necessary for rapid combustion in the furnace and also for drying coal in milling plants. So an
essential boiler accessory which serves this purpose is air pre-heater

The efficiency of the boiler increases with the increase in the temperature of the combustion air
used in the furnace.
This is achieved by the increased temperature of the flue gas in the air preheater and
economizer
zone.

Important -plant can work without preheated or economizer but addition of preheated has
decreased the power production cost thus it is a coat effective method.
Preheating the incoming air largely improves the thermal efficiency of the system, thereby
increasing the energy savings of the industry and results in lower operating costs. In fact, every
220C rise in combustion air temperature increases the boiler
efficiency by nearly 1%. Heat exchangers can be used to recover the heat from various
processes to
preheat the air.

The efficiency gradually increases as the heat transfer in the air preheater between the flue
gas and the incoming air increases. From fig.it is evident that as the flue gas outer temperature
decreases the boiler efficiency increases.

Performance of the boiler

It is also proved that for every 220C (approx.) reduction in the flue gas temperature the boiler
efficiency increases by 1%.
Major heat losses in boiler
The below mentioned percentage of losses has been calculated from the reading taken from a
210 MW boiler by using the appropriate formulae and the present efficiency has been
determined
The dry and wet losses are the major losses which is directly proportional to the flue gas out-
let temperature So by reducing the flue gas temperature after air preheater the boiler efficiency
can be increased. The Air preheater outlet temperature is governed by the flue gas inlet
temperature
to air preheater, air inlet temperature to air preheater,thermal performance of air preheater and
air preheater seal leakage.