POWER January 2020 - 30

COAL
Transformative Coal Power
Technologies Take Shape
The coal power industry acknowledges that to play a stable role in future power
markets, it needs to modernize, and perhaps even overhaul its long-held status as a
" conventional generator. " Could new technology give it the reboot it needs?
Sonal Patel
A
t its annual meeting in San Antonio,
Texas, last November, the
National Association of Regulatory
Utility Commissioners (NARUC)
hosted a debate that featured the heads
of U.S. trade organizations representing
coal, gas, nuclear, energy management,
renewables, and energy storage. Michelle
Bloodworth, president and CEO of
America's Power, a group that represents
the nation's coal power generators, held
her own as other participants painted
the resource as polluting, stodgy, and
outdated. " I do understand that some
people want coal to go away, but those
people also refuse to acknowledge that
coal keeps the lights on regardless of the
circumstances, " and has done so as the
cheapest resource for decades, she said.
But with reliability as its most valuable
attribute, coal generators, like other resource
providers on the grid, are adapting
to changing market conditions to accommodate
the surge of cheap natural gas,
and the variability of renewables. And, far
from being obsolete, Bloodworth argued,
the industry-which still has a 300-year
supply of coal but has suffered setbacks
owing to environmental policies and
" market distortions " -has embraced innovation
and technology to remain part of
the " all-of-the-above " strategy.
New coal technologies will " require a
different way of thinking, " and " it's certainly
going to take time and a significant
amount of research and development
[R&D] dollars and incentives, " Bloodworth
told POWER later in an interview.
All of it will hinge on a " cost-benefit
test, " she noted. For existing plants, that
will be whether it makes sense to make
crucial changes considering a plant's
useful life, and for new plants, whether
installation will guarantee cost-competition
in a rapidly changing market. That's
why America's Power has been advocating
so strongly for fair fuel security and
resilience valuation.
" It would allow more utilities and co30
ops
and generators to make these investments
and allow the [existing] coal
fleet to operate at least for its expected
intended life, because we think having
stranded cost and investment is not a
good thing for consumers, " she said. " It
doesn't mean the coal industry doesn't
support the 'all-of-the-above' energy
strategy-it's about keeping the advantageous
attributes of the coal fleet. "
Coal Plants of the Future
At the Department of Energy's (DOE's)
National Energy Technology Laboratory
(NETL), cost-effectiveness of new technologies
is a major priority-but so are
efforts to bring existing coal plant technologies
to market in the near-term (between
the next three to five years) under
its newly launched Transformative Power
Generation Program. Echoing other coal
technology advocates-such as the International
Energy Agency's IEA Clean
Coal Center (CCC)-it envisions that coal
power will need several critical attributes
to compete in future markets: high overall
plant efficiency; be small or modular,
and fast to build; produce near-zero emismid-to-high
40% range.
Another project spearheaded by
Echogen Power Systems, the Gas Technology
Institute, and the Electric Power
Research Institute (EPRI) will study an
advanced technology coal-fired power
plant that will integrate three innovative
technologies: sCO2
power cycles, pressurized
fluidized bed combustion, and
electrothermal energy storage. " These
technologies will deliver the key plant
characteristics of compactness, efficiency,
modularity, and operational flexibility
needed for coal-fired power plants
to remain competitive in a rapidly changing
energy market, " the developers said.
(For a full list of future coal technologies,
see the online version of this article at
powermag.com.)
Another interesting concept, led by
CONSOL Coal, WorleyParsons Group,
and Farnham & Pfile, also pairs the pressurized
fluidized bed combustor and a
supercritical steam cycle with Benefield
CO2 capture, and promises to operate
flexibly and accept a broad range of coal
qualities, including waste coals. Barr Engineering,
along with Doosan Heavy InCost-effectiveness
of new
technologies is a major priority.
sions; and have enhanced operations
and maintenance.
Encapsulating most of these attributes
are new designs that incorporate
novel cycles or combustion systems.
Among conceptual designs the DOE announced
it will bolster with $7 million in
funding under its Coal FIRST (Flexible,
Innovative, Resilient, Small, Transformative)
R&D program last October, for
example, is 8 Rivers Capital's efforts to
integrate coal gasification into the Allam
Cycle technology currently being proven
by NET Power in Texas, a supercritical
carbon dioxide (sCO2
) project that could
boost net coal power efficiency to the
www.powermag.com
dustries, the University of North Dakota,
Microbeam Technologies, and Envergex,
meanwhile, are exploring integrating a
250-MW ultrasupercritical plant with an
80-MW natural gas-fired turbine and energy
storage to help enable rapid startup
and load changes. Finally, the DOE is
also backing Nexant's and Bechtel's efforts
to study a modular plant that uses
a coal-based " fluid " (in either slurry or
micronized form) in a reciprocating engine
with a conventional gas turbine in a
reheat Brayton cycle-but also a steam
Rankine bottoming cycle to maximize
thermal efficiency.
Several oxy-combustion and chemiPOWER
| January 2020
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POWER January 2020

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