As process manufacturers grapple with high fuel costs to create the steam for their processes, they often look to increase the use of biomass and alternate fuels in their boilers. vThe key measurement is typically the cost per pound of steam. This can be reduced by maximizing the use of cheaper fuels like wood, stoker coal, and other forms of biomass while minimizing the use of natural gas and oil.
I spoke with Chip Rennie in Emerson’s Industrial Energy Solutions organization on the control challenges of operating boilers when running non-fossil fuels. These fuels can vary in moisture, consistency of particle size, BTU content, combustion air requirements, and boiler emissions performance limits.
From Chip and the consulting team, well operating multi-fuel boilers can often generate 90% of the plant’s steam, operate in automatic control over 95% of the time, minimize carbon in ash, and maintain emissions to specified levels.
Chip stresses the key to optimizing the operation of these boilers begins with an assessment of the mechanical components and instruments. Optimum business results cannot be achieved if these underlying components greatly limit performance. Examples of issues to be resolved include include fuel conveyor changes, fuel bins and distribution equipment, overfire or undergrate air system modifications, fan upgrades, or damper improvements.
Chip and his team have bundled their expertise on multi-fuel boilers into a SmartProcess application and call it SmartProcess Boiler. This application provides complete automatic control of the boiler at all times including start-up, automatically adjusts for changing fuel BTU per volume, and the system allows a multi-fuel boiler to be used as a swing boiler while burning least cost fuels.
The application automates many functions that are often done manually and allows a higher percentage of steam to be generated with biomass or alternate fuels.
Projects are typically done as a turnkey including design, installation, commissioning, start-up and training of the operations staff to run the boiler using the newly optimized equipment, firing methods, and control tools. Given the high costs of fossil fuels today, payback on the entire project is typically 3 to 6 months.
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