Full-scale co-firing trial tests of sawdust and bio-waste in pulverized coal-fired 230 t/h steam boiler

Co-firing trial tests of sawdust and bio-waste coming from cereal production with hard coal were carried out at Skawina Power Plant in Poland (1532 MW in fuel, currently belonging to CEZ Group). Skawina Power Plant is a tangentially-fired pulverized coal unit with nine boilers (4 boilers of 210 t/h and five boilers of 230 t/h live steam respectively) that produces 590 MW electricity and 618 MW of heat (district heating and process steam).The paper presents an analysis of energy and ecological effects of sawdust and bio-waste co-firing in the existing pulverized hard coal boiler. The mixture of coal and biomass was blended in the coal yard, and fed into the boiler through the coal mills. During the tests, combustion of mixtures composed of hard coal and sawdust (with mass share of 9.5%) and hard coal – bio-waste (6.6% mass basis) were examined. The co-firing tests were successful. Based on the analysis of the test results, the influence of biomass co-firing on specific components of energy balance (e.g. stack losses and boiler thermal efficiency) was discussed, in comparison to combustion of coal alone. The emission indices during coal combustion were calculated and compared to the emission indices for biomass co-firing. It was proved that co-firing of both biomass sorts leads to a decrease of CO and SO₂ emissions. Due to the possibility of considering the part of the energy generated during biomass co-firing as renewable energy, the procedure for biomass based renewable energy share determination is presented and illustrated with an example.