New Coal Burning Technologies : an Example of their Implementation in France

While coal consumption may decrease in the European Union, it is still growing in other regions like, for example, in China where it contributes to the huge economic development. The real challenge facing the solid fuels industry consist in making their use respectful of the environment.

To face this challenge, Charbonnages de France (CdF) and its partners in the EU implement, throughout the coal chain, innovative methods and advanced technologies.
The different clean coal burning technologies enabling coal use to be increasingly efficient and environmentally acceptable are :

Advanced pulverised fuel combustion with high efficiency and gas treatments
Integrated Coal Gasification Combined Cycle systems and
Atmospheric and pressurised fluidised bed combustors

They are essentially used for electricity generation and one should note that, currently and at world scale, forty-one percent of electricity is generated from coal.

In order to maximise the capabilities of the technique for using low grade fuels, such as coal washing residues or coals with high sulphur content, one is focusing now on the development and improvement of circulated fluidised bed boilers.

In the year 1990, CdF started up in the East of France a 125 MWe powerplant, burning coal washing residue, which was at that time the biggest one in Europe.

Since 1995, the company operates near the Gardanne Colliery, in the South of France, a 250 MWe powerplant using the world’s largest circulating fluidised bed combustor.

Today, eight year experience in operating such boilers have demonstrated that they are efficient, simple to operate and maintain, and able to fire a wide range of fuels without environmentally harmful emissions.

The future of coal in European electricity generation, where it has to compete with natural gas in a liberalised market, will depend on the balance between higher capital costs – due to new coal combustion technologies – and low fuel prices, on the one hand, and higher fuel (gas) prices and low capital costs on the other hand.

In any event, the future of the new European technologies – which in majority have been developed with a support of the THERMIE Programme – lies in the export market. The ongoing feasibility studies of a 250 MW powerplant to be built in China in co-operation with EdF and GEC-Alsthom is only one example. Other countries like Poland and Ukraine are also wishing to use new technologies.

The question of minimising CO2 emissions linked to coal burning has only one answer : increase energy efficiency of the plants. From a level of about 40% in the 250 MWe Gardanne powerplant, a level of 50% – and even higher – could be reached within the next 10 years. In such a situation, for a given output, the quantity of coal to be burnt is reduced by 20 % and so are the CO2 emissions.

As a matter of conclusion, it has been recognised that, in the EU, most of the environment-related problems have been solved (in particular for SO2, NOx and particles) and that in other parts of the world (think of China and India), this is far from being the case. There is room for technological know-how exports.