ANALYSIS FOR AN ECONOMICALLY SUITABLE COAL TO PUTTALAM COAL POWER STATION TO RUN THE PLANT IN FULL LOAD CAPACITY

Sri Lanka is an island at the Indian Ocean with 65234 km2 and it has a power demand of 2000 MW. The hydro power was the main power source before year 2000, after maximum usage of hydro power Sri Lanka installed fossil fuel power plant to achieve the demand. Then the electricity price gradually increased due to higher increment of fuel price. As the solution for this higher price of electricity the government has to go to new profitable power source the coal power. Finally year 2011 Puttalam coal power plant 300 MW x 1 was installed with the hope of providing the low cost reliable energy supply to Sri Lanka and it will be extended to 300MW x 3 plan in year 2015. Therefore the puttalam coal power plant is the key power plant to the Sri Lankan power generation and it is expected to have the maximum output (base load) to the Power demand of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is a tropical country and it has two different weather seasons as rainy season and dry season. The puttalam power plant situated at Kalpitiya peninsula and it has normally dry weather condition, Months of April, October November and December have heavy rain condition (Meteorological Department, Sri Lanka, 2012). The puttalam coal power plant may not achieve full load because of high moisture content at rainy season. So this Thesis carried out to find the capability to achieve the full load with available plant, plant capacity by using different coal qualities. Then find the economical benefits and effect on the environment with the recommended coal for different seasons and also design a storage plan to coal storage at existing coal yard. Based on the historical data and the Meteorological department rain fall data and by doing a technical analysis the recommended coal type was selected and the capability of plant equipment capacity to the recommended coal to achieve the full load was analyzed. Then the coal storage plan was designed according to annual requirement of the different recommended coal and economical benefit was analyzed by considering last year cost for generated power and the generation cost, if recommended coal is used for last year. Finally flue gas analysis was carried out for the recommended coal to find the effect on the environment. The recommended coal for rainy season is with the heating value of 6600 kcal/kg and for dry season it is 6300 kcal/kg. The capacities of main boiler and other plant equipments are capable for the recommended coal to achieve the full load of the plant. Then the design of the coal storage plan was given under figure 4.2 and table 4.1. It was calculated that a profit of 3.932 million US$ can be achieved by using the recommended coal for the last year and also when compared with the changing price of oil and coal it will be more profitable for the future. Because the oil price increases very rapidly and the increase in coal price is very low compared to the oil price. Finally the SOx and NOx emissions from recommended coal were analyzed and it was within the environmental limits because of the high quality emission reduction plant equipments