Supercritical Boiler Cleanup Cycle

Ranjan Kumar
NTPC Ltd
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Operation Controllable Activity:

• Boiler Startup
• Boiler Loading
• Load Reduction
• Shutdown and Boiler cooling
• Lay up

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Boiler Startup

• Pressure control (constant vs sliding)

• Ramping Rate
• Interactive water chemistry along with Water chemistry limits
• Burner selection
• Furnace Observation (FEGT, Tube metal temperature etc)
• Selective operation of soot blowers
• Slag monitoring system by heat flux meter

• ASLD availability
• FEGT Monitoring by
• FTP
• HVT - water cooled HVT probe above 538 deg C
• Acoustic Pyrometer

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Pr. Operation

Advantages:

 Minimal temp. variation for first stage turbine shell under

varying load condition
 Lower thermal stress during start-up
 Reduced Pr. Level at lower loads to prolong cycle
component life span
 Improved overall power plant heat rate
 Extended control range of MS and RH temp.

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reduction

Strategies to be adopted:

1. Review of startup curve provided by OEM to incorporate new learnings and best practices
2. Post startup analysis to over come potential barriers
3. Extensive use of PI Process Book.
4. Dynamic startup curve in DCS
5. Control loop tuning for automated startup.
6. Experienced Senior Operator during startup in each shift.
7. Availability of maintenance technician during startup
8. Simulator training to shift operators
9. Conducting pre-startup activities

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Startup After Wet Layup –

According to the general OT operation experience, it is possible to commence startup of units

stored for less than 4 weeks without any special cleanup actions. If the nitrogen blanket has
been consistently maintained throughout the outage, the water in the boiler should be ready
for firing. Any additional makeup water required to achieve the level needed to fire the boiler
must be treated deoxygenated water (DO < 100 ppb, pH > 9.0).

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Simplified drawing of the three feedwater cleanup loops

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1. LP Flushing: Condensate circuit flushing is started with around 30% TMCR

condensate flow. Condensate flow is to be varied between 30% and 40% in step
of 5% at an interval of 1 hour. When iron level in condensate system comes
below 400 ppb, LP flushing is supposed to be completed. Total time taken in
completion of LP flushing will be around 5 hours. Deaerator is under pegged
condition and condenser vacuum is maintained.

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2. HP Flushing: It is deaerator outlet to pre boiler flushing. HP flushing is

required only if feed water cation conductivity is > 0.6 µs/cm. It will take
around 2 hours to achieve iron level < 100 ppb if feed water circuit is under
preservation. Minimum feed water temperature is to be maintained around
1020C. Condenser will be under vacuum.

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3. Cold cleanup blow :

i. Feed water flow at eco inlet is to be maintained around 30% of TMCR.
ii. Separator level is to be maintained around 10 mtr keeping LLOFCV and
HLOFCV in auto.
iii. Feed water flow at eco inlet is to be varied from 0 to 30%.

Feed Water Flow Boiler Cold Clean up Cycle

40%

20%

0%
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Time in min

iv. Water from Boiler drain recovery tank will over flow to atmosphere until Fe level
comes below 500 ppb at its discharge.
v. Cold cleanup is complete now.
 

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4. Cold cleanup recirculation:

 Boiler drain recovery tank water is fed to condenser through

condensate transfer pump.
 BCP is started now.
 One CPU is taken in service.
 Around 30% of condensate flow is passed through CPU.

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4. Cold cleanup recirculation:

 Feed water flow at eco inlet is to be varied from 25% to 35%.

 BFP caters 25% flow and BCP caters 10% flow.
 Variation is created by BCP only in step of 5% at an interval of 1 hour.
 Process continues until feed water quality at eco inlet achieves
following limits:
Fe < 50 ppb
SiO2 < 50 ppb
ACC < 1 µs/cm

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5. Hot cleanup:
 Light up the boiler
 Separator pressure is to be maintained around 5 to 10 Ksc.
 Feed water temperature should not go beyond 2000C.
 Separator pressure ramp rate will be 0.05 Ksc/min.
 SH dry out process will take around 100 minute.
 SH drains and vents (except startup vents) are closed at 5 Ksc of separator pr.

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5. Hot cleanup:

 Now create temperature swing between 1500C and 2000C by controlling oil
burners maintaining separator pressure between 5 to 10 Ksc.
2000C

1500C

 Process continues until feed water quality at eco inlet achieves following
limits:
Fe < 30 ppb
SiO2 < 50 ppb
ACC < 0.35 µs/cm

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6. HP-LP Bypass charging :

 Charge HP-LP bypass once hot cleanup is completed.

7. Continue as per startup curve to achieve turbine rolling parameters.

 

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Activity wise time elapsed :

S.No Activity Time(hrs)

1 LP clean up 5
2 HP clean up 2
3 Boiler Water Circuit filling 3

4 Boiler Cold Cleanup 8

5 Purging & Boiler Light up 0.5
6 Boiler SH Ckt. Dry out 1.5
7 Boiler Hot cleanup 6

8 Obtaining Steam Parameters for rolling 5

9 High Speed (3000 rpm) Heat Soak 1
10 Low Load Heat Soak @ 24 MW 1
  Total 33

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Cleanup cycle time can be further reduced by adopting following practices:

 
Supercritical unit must be operated under OT (Oxygenated Treatment). The guidance consists of stopping
oxygen feed at least one hour before shutdown of the unit and of increasing ammonia feed rates.
Simultaneously, the deaerator vents should be opened to aid in cycle deaeration in conjunction with
stopping the oxygen feed. At the same time, the low pressure and high-pressure heaters should be
carefully vented. The object of the increased ammonia feed rates is to achieve a pH higher than 9.0 in
agreement with the AVT(O) chemistry.

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Cleanup cycle time can be further reduced by adopting following practices:

 

Shutdown and operation guidance on OT chemistry for wet layup

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If outage duration is more than 3 days, boiler may be preserved preferably under
dry layup. If not, wet preservation may be carried out with Nitrogen blanketing.
Boiler should always be filled with DM water having DO < 100 ppb.
SH circuit should be filled preferably with attemperator water to avoid impurities
carry over from feed water circuit to SH circuit.

 If outage duration is more than 4 weeks, cold and hot cleanup cycle operation should
be carried out to prepare the unit for load operation within next 4 weeks without any
significant time consumption in cleanup cycle.

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