Conveyor contributes to greener electricity
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Robson Handling Technology product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
May 30, 2006
Geo Robson and Co has supplied a conveyor system for handling biomass fuel at Fiddler's Ferry power station in Warrington, UK.
Geo Robson and Co has supplied a conveyor system for handling biomass fuel at Fiddler's Ferry power station in Warrington, UK.
Valued at around GBP 5 million, the system is part of a dedicated storage, weighing and milling plant built by Alstom for cofiring biomass and coal at the 2000MW station, which is owned and operated by Scottish and Southern Energy.
Robson's system will handle palm kernel chips in the first instance, but has been designed with tolerances sufficient to accommodate other supplementary fuels derived from vegetable byproducts, such as olive kernels, wood pellets, citrus pulp, sunflower pellets, maize pellets and olive cake.
It currently feeds two of Fiddler's Ferry's four boilers, with provision for extension to the others in due course.
After passing through a metal detector and screening for oversize, the biomass is transferred into storage by inclined gantry conveyors and directed through shuttle chutes into either of the silos supplying the boilers.
It is withdrawn on demand through variable-speed screw conveyors to be milled down to the appropriate particle size for combustion, and then delivered to the boiler burners independently of the pulverised coal.
The gantry conveyors have been built to Robson's own fully enclosed Airglide conveyor design, eliminating the need to enclose the complete gantry structure.
The Robson Airglide conveyor differs from traditional designs by allowing the loaded belt to be supported on a cushion of air along its longitudinal length.
This eliminates the need for carrying idlers while drastically reducing motor power and energy consumption.
Fiddler's Ferry is the latest in a long line of alternative fuel projects for Robson, which includes tyre and tyre chip handling systems installed for all four of the UK's major cement manufacturing companies and 'waste to energy' equipment supplied to sites throughout Europe.
Use of biomass as a fuel is encouraged by the EU Renewables Directive because it is carbon-neutral and therefore gives rise to less "greenhouse gas".
Boilers can be adapted for firing with up to 20% biomass in the fuel mixture, equivalent to a reduction in CO2 emissions of around 40%.
In power generation this also assists compliance with the Large Combustion Plant Directive, which aims to reduce emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and dust from plants with a thermal output greater than 50MW.
Some energy industry experts predict that "clean" coal will be the most suitable fuel for generating energy for at least the next ten years.
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