Objective In various EU and East European countries, e.g. Germany, Greece, Finland, Spain, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania, fuels, such as lignites, brown coal and peat, with low heating value and high water content are used for power generation. Due to the availability of the supply and their highly competitive price these fuels will maintain their role in the future. However, the high moisture content decreases the efficiency of power generation considerably in comparison to bituminous coal. The replacement of conventional milling and drying with high temperature flue gas by an external predrying step with a low temperature heating agent, for these moist fuels offers the possibility to considerably increase the efficiency. Depending on the drying process and its integration into the power plant, improvements up to 5% seem to be possible. The goal of the project is to increase the efficiency of power generation and thereby to reduce all other emissions from high-moisture fuels by implementing the predrying concept in power plants without increasing the investment costs. Although drying technologies have been well experienced since several decades in briquette production, the implementation into the power plant process only recently begun to be developed in two countries in central Europe and Scandinavia. This project will therefore extend the currently restricted development of predrying technologies to a EU and also East European level and investigate the concept for non-experienced fuels. This will stimulate advanced and environmentally friendly brown coal utilization in countries with similar fuels like Greece, Poland, Romania, Turkey, etc. The greater knowledge of these fuels, will improve the industry's competitiveness on the East European and on the world wide market for power plants. The project includes theoretical evaluation and pilot scale testing of drying and subsequent combustion and aims at optimum integration of drying into a power plant. The results will be the basis for feasibility studies, to be evaluated in four West and East European countries. The main results of the project will be the suitability of different drying concepts for a wide range of EU/ East European fuels, and the effect of external predrying on subsequent combustion, i.e. operational and environmental aspects such as fouling, slagging and emissions. The project will further demonstrate feasibility, restrictions, etc. of the technology and will give hints for further research and demonstrational needs for an implementation of the technology. The project joins institutes and end users of West and East Europe. The participation of utilities clearly emphasizes the importance of the project with regard to application and penetration into the market. Fields of science engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsfossil energycoal Programme(s) FP4-INCO - Specific research, technological development and demonstration programme in the field of cooperation with third countries and international organizations, 1994-1998 Topic(s) 01 - SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL COOPERATION IN EUROPE AND WITH INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS Call for proposal Data not available Funding Scheme CSC - Cost-sharing contracts Coordinator UNIVERSITAET STUTTGART EU contribution No data Address Pfaffenwaldring 23 70569 STUTTGART Germany See on map Total cost No data Participants (3) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF SOFIA Bulgaria EU contribution No data Address 2,St Kl Ohridsky Blvd, 8 1797 SOFIA See on map Total cost No data Technical University of Timisoara Romania EU contribution No data Address 1,Bvd. M. Viteazu 1900 Timisoara See on map Total cost No data Technical University of Wroclaw Poland EU contribution No data Address 27,Wybrzeze st. Wyspianskiego 50 370 Wroclaw See on map Total cost No data
