Low-volatile coal combustion technologies in Vietnam: issues and strategies

Vietnam has planned to install a number of coal-fired power plants with unit's capacity of up to 600 MW. Present experience shows that available low volatile anthracite coal is difficult to burn in the PC fired boilers. In this paper, the CFB combustion technology is proposed based on the experiences of coal-fired power plants around the world used similar coal characteristics. Later, a techno-economic study of the renovation of an old PC fired power plant, with a number of firing options namely; PC to CFB, replacement with a new PC, and replacement with a new CFB boiler is presented.

Keywords: coal-fired power plants, anthracite coal, pulverised coal, circulating fluidised bed, CFB combustion, ball mill, direct firing method, indirect firing method, Vietnam, coal combustion, low volatile coal