Recent Status and Prospect of Preparatory Study of Combined Cycle Power Generation System using Hypercoal

Abstract

Recent Status and Prospect of Preparatory Study of Combined Cycle Power Generation System using Hypercoal are reviewed. The concept of the system is to completely remove coal ash in a very early stage of coal utilization so that a gas turbine can directly burn coal. This preparatory study started April, 1999 for 3 years and involves developments of ; (1) Hypercoal production process to completely remove deleterious ash from raw coal; (2) Evaluation of Hypercoal as a feedstock for the existing gas turbine power generation systems and an environmental performance of different coal utilization technologies. Ash content of some Hypercoals is less than the target value, 200 ppm, and removal of alkaline metal is within the range of possibility. The results obtained during three years indicates the attainment of the preparatory study. After this study, the phase 2 of the project using large scale Hypercoal production unit will be expected to start in order to verify the concept of this system.