BioMass CoFiring Municipal Refuse with Low LHV Local Lignite

Dear Colleagues

We shall be in "Renewable Energy" conference in Kayseri on 16-17 October 2009. On behalf of Chamber of Turkish Mechanical Engineers, your writer will make a presentation on "Biomass Cofiring" which is basically description of firing municipality refuse with local lignite in the nearby thermal power plants.

On 16th July 2009 together with a number of leading local businessmen, your writer had the opportunity to have a business lunch in Bursa Botanical Park with new elected Mayor of Bursa Greater Municipality.

Bursa Greater Municipality evaluates takeover possibility of Bursa Keles lignite mine reserves from Turkish Coal Board, and open a tender to construct a new thermal power plant based on CFB steam boiler technology, and make necessary cofiring to dispose the municipality refuse in that plant

That is widely used operation in Northern America and Western Europe

There is available local technology to construct a thermal power plant based on CFB technology in biomass cofiring of municipality waste with local low quality lignite

Municipality disposes the refuse and also generates electricity and creates income for the municipality to use in other public projects.

Cofiring is the combustion of two different types of materials at the same time. One of the advantages of cofiring is that an existing plant can be used to burn a new fuel, which may be cheaper or more environmentally friendly. Biomass is sometimes cofired in existing coal plants instead of new biomass plants. Cofiring can also be used to improve the combustion of fuels with low energy content.

First you make necessary recycling operation on incoming municipality refuse. That means you screen out metals, paper/ cardboard, and plastics for reutilization. The remaining is your mass refuse. If you can dehydrate, take the water out by pressing or via centrifugals, you get relatively high heating value fuel to burn and get electricity to generate income.

Rule of thump cost figure is that for each 2 million inhabitants of a selected greater municipality, you can have an economic capacity of maximum 60 Mwe electricity generation where you can co-fire municipality refuse together with local poor LHV quality lignite. Fuel is cheap, so is the generated electricity.

As long as the electricity or heat produced with the biomass and landfill gas was otherwise going to be produced with non-renewable fuels, the benefits are essentially equivalent whether they are cofired or combusted alone. Cofiring can be used to lower the emission of some pollutants. Cofiring biomass with coal results in less sulfur emissions than burning coal by itself.

Cofiring (also referred usually as co-firing or co-combustion) is the combustion of two different fuels in the same combustion system. Fuels can be solid fuels, Liquid fuels or gaseous, and its nature either fossil or renewable.

Therefore use of heavy fuels assisting coal power stations may be considered technically co-firing. However the term cofiring is used in the present technological framework to designate combined combustion of two (or more) fuels sustained in the time, as a normal daily practice.

The interest for cofiring and the use of this term sprung in the 80's in the U.S. and Europe, and referred specifically to the use of waste solid residues (paper, plastic, solvents, tars, etc.) or biomass in coal power stations that were initially designed for combustion of sole coal, and attempted, because of existence of those new opportunity fuels, to carry out a combined combustion in order to increase benefit margins.

This interest on cofiring has grown in the last decade mainly due to the increasing social concerns on global warming and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Consequences of this concern are the new policies on energy and environment aiming at reducing emissions. Cofiring is regarded as a great opportunity for replacing coal (solid fossil fuel) used for power generation easily with renewable fuels (biomass) with low costs and a direct repercussion in the decrease of greenhouse gas emissions.

During the last decades research has provided very diverse solutions for cofiring biomass in coal power stations with a limited impact in efficiency, operation and lifespan.

Power generation with better efficiency: generally biomass power plants produce electricity with relative low efficiency (18 to 22%) respect the huge coal units (32 to 38%) with optimised cycles given the economy of scale

Flexible operation: original plant can operate still at 100% load with fossil fuel. Co-firing facility is less sensitive to seasonality in biomass production and to biomass availability and price

Incentives for development of biomass markets: diverse European countries have proven the promotion of co-firing is a key for the development of biomass markets as well as for the creation of expertise on biomass handling and combustion

Biomass co-firing represents, compared to other renewable sources, a technically feasible option with the potential of contributing to the EU energy supply meanwhile ensuring sustainable development.

Co-firing of biomass with coal offers several advantages, such as the utilisation of large quantities at low combustion rates in the current combustion systems, lower investments and higher conversion efficiencies compared to systems fired exclusively with biomass.

The EC has recognised the need of promoting the use of biomass co-firing in order to comply with the Kyoto Protocol, which implies a reduction of 8% of the greenhouse emissions between 2006 and 2012.

In spite of numerous successful experiences achieved in Europe, this technology still deserves attention in order to find solutions for technical problems as well as to improve efficiency, reduce costs and emission levels.

Today, the accession of the 10 new members to the EU 25 brings a new opportunity for the development of biomass co-firing, due to the coal combustion infrastructure already installed, the land availability for energy crops and the current dependency on imported fossil fuels.

According to the Council resolution on renewable energies of May 1998, the share of biomass has to be increased from 3.1% in 1995 up to 8.5% in 2010, a target which will not be met unless an unified approach of biomass co-firing in the European level comes into play.

We conclude that this is a win-win solution. Greater municipalities exploit the nearby lignite resources and dispose their municipality refuse, and generate cheap electricity. There is EU project funding for BioMass cofiring. All you have to do is proper application to the EU funds.

“The difficult I’ll do right now, the impossible will take a little while”, Billie Holiday, my favorite Jazz Singer

We shall be too pleased to receive your evaluations and contributions. Your comments are always welcome

Haluk Direskeneli, Ankara based Energy Analyst

Unconventional Credit Risk Appraisal and Rating of Power Markets

Dear Energy Professional, Dear Colleagues,

Today I will tell you about non- commercial/ unconventional restaurants, which are almost equal if not superior than commercial restaurants. In other words these are "company or public institution canteens" in the local Power Generation market as well as those in the global world where I visited during my last 30 plus years of professional life. It is also a good yardstick as an unconventional credit risk appraisal and rating in Power markets.

These restaurants are in Thermal Power Plants, or in Power Plant construction companies, serving lunch to their employees. Some of them are in our leading technical universities where I visited them to give seminars on how use thermal power plant design software, or in chambers of engineering institutions where I have been invited to carry out joint engineering projects/ seminars/ conferences.

Normally we do not care the quality and importance of those restaurants during our working rush cycle. However we need to give some pause for ourselves and appreciate the importance and the quality they gather in these very important internal institutions. They give you a very important clue in your interpretation and appraisal of that institution.

Those places are normally not commercial since they are basically formed to serve the company employees for their lunch. In most of them food is served free of charge, however in some of them, mostly in universities, they charge you a symbolic figure.

It is my sincere feeling that if the employee canteen is above standards, if it is in high quality in its service, food quality, be sure that its institution is also at high standards. When I visit a power institution, let it be a power plant, or a construction site, or a head office of a construction company, or a technical university, I usually wait my hosts to invite me to their own employee canteen. I am not pleased if they invite me to a fancy expensive commercial restaurant. Invitation to their own employee restaurant is almost no cost for them.

Hence I carefully inspect their food quality, service, hygiene, and the atmosphere. If these criteria are above expectations then I am sure that this company/ institution/ construction site/ or the university or college is successful and will continue to be successful in future.

A good company restaurant means that enterprise cares her employees. That is a very positive indication. If a company does not have a restaurant, and distributes food tickets, it is an indication that either they have some space difficulties at the city center or you should have certain question marks in their long term staff management. That is also a clue for their long term company strategy.

Above procedure has no relation with current Basel-2 credit rating, but it is my sincere feeling that it is also sound and reliable.

Here are my favorite local uncommercial restaurants, all with AAA credit rating, starting from Istanbul,

Yeditepe University, Kayisdagi Campus Academician restaurant, excellent sea view, excellent sea food,
Istanbul Technical University- Gumussuyu Academicians Restaurant, wonderful Bosphorus view, good food,
Turkiye IsBankasi Towers main employee restaurant, once Camis General Manager invited me to have our lunch. You have light (diet) and normal menu to choose.
ENKA Contracting Company Istanbul head office special restaurant named Renaissance, once yours truly invited for lunch. We had extraordinary sea food.
Küçükyali Istanbul Municipality restaurant, no alcohol, but delicious grilled meatballs (Izgara köfte)

In Ankara

METU Academicians restaurant in campus, two open banquets one for selection, the other one for fixed menu, wonderful environment, excellent food. There are two more restaurants in the campus, one in social building and one in the congress centre but they are not comparable with the major at the centre.
Gama contracting company in Ankara, company canteen at the basement, 3-course excellent food, no-nonsense list. Fish on Fridays. Decision-makers come to the canteen at about 1300 hours. If you are newcomer, better have your lunch between 1230-1300 hours.
Guris Construction company Golbasi head office canteen. 4 course excellent food.
Park Energy company canteen, extraordinary food with open buffet salad bar,
Turkish Sugar Corporation Etimesgut premises guesthouse, best "Begendi" kebab ever tasted.
GES Elektrik, Hasanoglan warehouse, excellent Antep kitchen.
ODTU Alumni Association Visnelik, good atmosphere, membership necessary.

Somewhere in Turkey,

Cayirhan Park Energy Thermal Power Plant guest house roof restaurant,
Koc Holding Entek CCPP power plant company canteen, open salad buffet, desert, excellent food, barbecue on Fridays, lots of meatballs, salad and watermelon.
Sabanci Kentsa Izmit, main employee restaurant in recreation area, excellent food, next to swimming pool,
Soktas Textile plant in Söke, excellent food,
Batman Tüpras Refinery guest house, excellent traditional food,
Hopa thermal power plant canteen, excellent traditional BlackSea food,
Orhaneli Thermal Power plant guest house, excellent mezze in dinner,
Soma Thermal power plant company canteen, excellent fish food,
Afsin-Elbistan-A Thermal power plant, extraordinary organization to serve hungry masses,
Yenikoy Thermal power plant, excellent traditional food,
Zonguldak Chamber of Mining Engineers Club House restaurant.

International,

Brown & Root Engineering, company canteen, Wimbledon London, excellent lunch,
Fiat-Avio Torino, Italy, small amount of wine tolerated/served, excellent Italian food, spaghetti, sea food
GE Nuovo Pignone, Florence, small size wine bottles available, excellent seafood,
Siemens Erlangen, one-glass beer tolerated, excellent red meat dishes, their executive restaurant is extraordinary. You get excellent service, plus cognac,
Babcock & Wilcox, Cambridge, Canada, good fish/sea food.
Patrick Lumumba International University in Moscow Russia, extraordinary red meat.
Diar-El-Zor, Syria sugar plant, wonderful kebab, extraordinary Middle Eastern food.
SubContracting Fabrication Plant in Diar-el Zor Syria, Extraordinary special East Indian food, since the subcontractor and his employees are from Bangladesh. Wonderful Indian spices,
ELIN head office in Vienna Austria, reasonable amount of white wine tolerated/ served, wonderful red meat food.
ABB Finpong Sweden, in Christmas time they serve hot punch at entrance,
ENKA Tengiz Kazakhstan site, employee canteen, excellent traditional Turkish food, extraordinary service,
Aramco, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, the longest open buffet I have ever seen,

Be sure that excellent restaurants are not necessarily commercial. There are also excellent restaurants in power sector, and these are not commercial; the employees of those institutions make them special.

As the saying goes you get back what you give or you reap what you sow.

Haluk Direskeneli, Prinkipo based Energy Analyst

Random Site Surveillance

Dear Energy Professional, Dear Colleagues

From time to time, top management of reputable private power plants ask your writer to visit their plants on random basis on their behalf. That is called “site surveillance” by a third party for independent integrity inspection to get an independent overview and candid evaluation.

That is a good practice for the upper management who misses the details of the existing status at the plant in daily rush, since they feel normal for sometimes an unpleasant situation. A senior experienced newcomer (here your writer) can detect the important unpleasant details much easier.

On 13-14 December 2007, we were on that special assignment in Chayirhan Thermal Power Plant and its nearby lignite mining premises.

Initially we were quite skeptical for existing operation of the thermal power plant. In the past, we were involved in a number of site seeing visits for new power plant and FGD tenders prior to proposal and award on behalf of our then employer. We had an uneasy feeling of the plant in the past, before it was taken over by the private company.

We arrived to the plant late afternoon when it was quite dark outside. We first visited the steam turbine house at about 1800 hours.

All steam turbines which were made of Mitsubishi, (2X150MWe + 2x160 MWe) were running at full load. We have visualized that in the Turbine house, control systems of steam turbines number 1&2 need upgrading since the existing old fashion controls were not able to fulfill today’s requirements any more.

We were told that plant control room upgrading for 1&2 is now in their New Year investment budget for an estimated figure of 8-10 million Euros.

Steam turbines number 3&4 were in good shape, all running at full load. Their control system (Siemens) were modern, no need for upgrading at this time.

The next day, your writer visited the boiler front coal inlet, coal mills, visualized the repair and upgrading of the spare coal mill for each unit.

Then we have seen the flue gas desulphurization units. All 4 units were in operation, keeping the main stacks in by-pass mode. My host, plant operations manager, proudly explained that the existing electrostatic precipitators were in good shape collecting dust/ fly ash in the flue gas at highest efficiency.

Steam boilers were designed and built by SGP (AEE) company of Austria/Germany, which is now non-existing since it merged by other boiler companies.

We examined coal feed inlet bunkers, bottom ash slurry pits, fly ash disposal systems, coal pulverizes, pulverized coal burners plus nearby oil burners.

We climbed to the top roof and visualized the boiler hangers all in good shape. We saw steam drums, safety valves on the boiler roof.
We inspected the outside walls of the boiler combustion chambers. They were all in good condition. We then checked the water treatment system, polishing, feed water pumps.

During our random site surveillance, one tube failure was reported, and corrective action has been taken.

Later we were invited to nearby lignite coal mining facilities. The underground mining facility was fully automatic, fully mechanized, supported by computer surveillance/ and wireless communication 24 hours / 7 days non-stop. Their operation method is “retrieve mining”; that is when miners remove the coal in the pillars, thereby recovering as much coal from the coal seam as possible.

Modern pillar sections use remote controlled equipment, including large hydraulic mobile roof supports, which can prevent cave ins until the miners and other equipment have left a work area. After the large pillars of coal have been mined away, the mobile roof support legs shorten, and the mobile roof supports travel out to a safe area. The mine roof typically collapses once the mobile roof supports leave the area.

We were advised that they had new 2x300 MWe thermal power plant investment in their future program which is in feasibility/ evaluation/ permission stage for licensing procedures by the public authorities.

They also have new imported coal thermal power plant investment in their program to utilize the neighboring Georgian coal mines at Hopa seaport which is privatized and operated by the parent company.

The plant management is undertaken by the former experienced public employees of the existing power plant; therefore it is their own plant since the start-up. They know every detail. It is your writer’s sincere feeling that they are paid better and work better since the public restrictions are removed; they have more control and hence ability to run the plant better.

They have ash- dam for bottom ash disposal where ash is transported by mechanical conveyors to the ash-dam.

They make regular “Integrity Inspection” for programmed rehabilitation. In the near past, Babcock Borsig and Alstom had prepared such documentations.

Plant availability is as high as over 80%+ which is almost twice of other power plants in public operation. It is a good showcase for privatization, full utilization of available resources.

The power plant is a good example of successful privatization in the local market. Plant thermal efficiency is high, availability is high, and labor productivity is also high. It is situated at the mine mouth of local indigenous lignite reserves.

The 620 MW capacity Chayirhan Power plant is 120km from Ankara city center, and it is located in Nallihan county, near to Chayirhan town. The Chayirhan Power Plant supplies 3,600,000,000 KW-hr of electric power into the national grid each year while utilizing poor-quality lignite from local mines

To meet our country's increasing energy demands, local power plants fire poor quality lignite of low calorific value, high ash and high moisture content, which can not be utilized elsewhere.

This operation introduces environmental hazards which have to be avoided.

We have lignite as our biggest fuel source and we all agree that we should use that local coal,

with maximum efficiency and availability,
with minimum harm to the mother nature,
with minimum impact on global warming.

The world has a lot of coal, but right now carbon capture and sequestration is not commercially viable, and no guarantee it will be in the future.

Solar and wind plants have long term availability problem.

Natural gas has national security implications and also does emit CO2 which creates global warming.

The primary energy sources for new capacity and energy efficiency measures need to be chosen using some kind of quantitative risk-assessment scheme that most likely will result in a diverse energy mix that includes nuclear.

We are really not sure how to get around/adapt to the global climate change problem without some drastic changes, even if nuclear energy is implemented.

Just as the proverb 'a picture is worth a thousand words' applies in everyday life, so too does the Random Site Surveillance provide the essential ingredient to the successful continuous operation of the thermal power plant.

In the end, we can say that, all we need is self-confidence as well as confidence of investor who would put money into similar other new projects, i.e. Afsin Elbistan, Soma, Kangal, Bingol, which will utilize the local lignite.

Once again we would like to congratulate the Plant Management and the Creditors who put money which made the project realized, and to the engineers/ employees who make the plant to run smoothly, efficiently at maximum availability and efficiency.

In case of any need for “Random Site Surveillance” at any of your thermal power plants, please feel free to call your writer.

Your comments are always welcome.

Hot Bunking at Site Installation Facilities

Dear Energy Professional, Dear Colleagues,

Please do note that "Hot Bunking" is a common practice mostly in the naval armed forces and on submarines where several soldiers share the same bed. The bed is still warm from the prior user, hence the term hot bunking. When sleeping quarters are limited, as they particularly are on submarines, and when staffing is required around the clock, soldiers both work and sleep in shifts. This could mean as many as three people share the same bunk on a submarine.

Due to the overcapacity in many overseas site facilities and offshore platforms, there have been that practice for the workers to also work and sleep in shifts. This type of hot bunking would provide more bed space.

The idea of sharing space for sleeping has led to other means in which people might also share limited resources. The term “hot desking” has been created to mean several shift workers who share the same central desk at different times of the day. Since they don’t work the same shifts, the desk would otherwise not be occupied. From a perspective of saving space, “hot desking” is an economical and now more popular practice in the business world.

Another idea related to hot bunking is the idea of people in companies sharing cars, or the idea of several people owning a shared car. This is still called hot bunking a car, though as it becomes more common, it may soon lead to a different term. Again the focus is on pooling resources, saving space and money.

Not everybody is a fan of hot bunking, and it has sometimes been used in armed services in a discriminatory way. Fears particularly in the US military about women and men using the same sleeping quarters, or even more so, concern about people with alternative lifestyles in the US armed forces has led to accusations that occasionally hot bunking is used to keep certain people from serving the same shift and sleeping at the same time.

Often the practice of hot bunking is not based on discrimination but merely a practice of best using resources. It can give you pause to think about what it might be like to never get to sleep in a freshly made bed. Yet it is only one of the many sacrifices people in active military service must make to perform their jobs under difficult circumstances.

When we were at Bechtel facilities in Tengiz Kazakhstan, we visited the nearby Turkish Contractor’s site a few miles away. Compared to our major contractor’s site facility, which was purchased from the former Hungarian State contractors, and kept in operation with minimum renovation, Turkish site facility was new, and much better.

Each worker/ technician/ engineer had a separate room with shower and toilet. They had satellite TV access, latest PC hardware and software, construction machineries, all in good condition, machine shop etc.

They had delicious fresh food, and very civilized working environment. They were subcontractors of TCO and Bechtel at oil field, pipeline construction and engineering in the offices. I have been other Turkish contractors’ site facilities in overseas construction; we had very civilized working conditions everywhere. Food was always extraordinary. Workers lived in reasonable high standard accommodations, no mention of “hot bunking”.

However nowadays we have another interesting development in our local market. Due to their ultra low prices, and their concurrence with high penalty clauses, companies from Far East are receiving power plant/ steam boiler orders in our own local market.

Careless investors are placing orders to those FarEast companies just because they are too cheap. Not only Western companies but also our own construction companies are not in competition with those low prices. Chinese companies are constructing three CFB based thermal power plants in the local market where they bring 500+ qualified labour to the each site for civil works and site installation activities.

Our local laws and regulations don't prohibit them to bring such large scale labour inflow. “Hot Bunking” is an untold but almost always general practice in their site facilities.

Other than that, our local investors don't care about quality/ performance/ efficiency of the final product they are purchasing, all they care about the cheapest price. The cheapest price is the virtue of Chinese companies. When you declare the expected cheapest price in any tender, Chinese have always a better / lower price than that.

There are explanations that these new foreign workers are either soldiers or young prisoners with good manners. They work hard, 12 hours per day, 7 days per week, in a civilized environment, with a clean bed to sleep, 3 shifts of good meal. The most important issue to point out is that they have a sort of “Hot Bunking” practice in their accommodation facilities. You are to accommodate so many number of workers in that available small space.

Solution to cut site expenses lies in “Hot Bunking”. Chinese companies are getting the order turn-key, complete with design, fabrication, procurement, leaving almost nil to the local partner. They are much cheaper than the Western companies, although they are rather inexperienced/ or shy in their early design. It is strange to disclose the latest news that their crane/ material/ equipment cargo containers also carry food (rice, beans, spices etc) inside. Local partners have great difficulties, high risk, and high unforeseen costs in their customs clearance.

Their design drawings are not at the best standards. Most of the time, they can't meet the guaranteed figures, expected performances. They also do not care details and importance of environmental protection equipment since these are not importance in their home country.

It is a common saying that "Chinese companies have no backbones. They have very flexible ethics” which means certain red-flag warnings in application of anti-corruption measures. Earlier we hoped that service business- civil works and site installation would be ours at all times, by all means. Not any more.

Now it is time to create our own technologies as lead companies, there is no more subcontracting. We need to focus on high value, high technology items; not only the traditional construction. Many of our companies are focused on working as simple "contractors" with only interest in the "C" (construction) of the "EPC" contracts. “Engineering” is usually a small part of the project but the procurement is a big ticket, where a lot of profit is.

Taking economics into account, the companies need to focus on turn key projects to build the local expertise we are talking about. The problem is such that people only focus on the things they understand.

A professional who knows a little about the technical matters and risks of building a power plant will end up focusing on the price. Because this will be the only way he will be able to provide “value”.

We often have trouble to assign tangible value to the intangibles to convince people about its benefits. $ signs show up in people’s spreadsheet cells, how do you assign $ value to quality, which will enable you to have more efficiency, less breakdown and of course more productivity? This is a never ending fight between CAPEX and OPEX.

The client gets a cheap plant and pays arm and a leg to operate it. It is simply stupid economics! But if one’s intention is to build a junk then get qualified for the payment then nothing else matters. I am afraid it is about building stuff not about building things that function well and pay back and make financial sense.

That’s why, I would like to extend the meaning of a project to longer time duration; say 5 years after the delivery to account for the operations results. Then, the front-end-heroes, or we call them the early participants of projects that way will see that their evaluations and personal stakes lie in a longer term, not just ending when the keys of a plant is delivered.

How many times have you heard things like:
“…well, I will be retired then, it will not be my problem, etc…”.

When I explain these thoughts, local decision makers of big private local contracting companies start to stare at me with empty faces, but time has changed, so their organizations should also be changed/ restructured accordingly, otherwise they will face the consequences, since it is the world of the fittest.

Our Public companies have the following attitude these days. They say "Since we should get 3- offers and evaluate for almost 3-months for each bolt we need, we cannot finalize any investment in the modern times in a reasonable short period of time. Therefore we ask private investors to make the investment. We expect the maximum rental fee for our treasury." Good point, good thinking, very logical.

Surprisingly traditional Turkish scope at an industrial construction covers only civil works and site installation, plus maybe some construction of administration buildings / some catering. That is all. It is a pity. Most of our companies don’t have courage to exceed these simple activities.

These activities are simple, hard work with minimum cost, almost with minimum value added value. It is so sad to say that our companies cannot handle basic engineering, they cannot handle overall leadership. So we all handle the hard work, whereby our international partners get the biggest portion of the scope and profit.

We all have the same design software and hardware available as elsewhere, and we can purchase the necessary technical license to handle design works of all types’ thermal power plants.

In the international markets, today US or UK companies, German/ French/ Italian companies are too expensive. They can not receive any order in our local market due to their high market prices. On the other hand China, Indian, Korean companies are relatively much cheaper in turn key EPC contracts.

If we do not show our engineering expertise, our market will soon be dominated by these FarEast companies and as a result our local companies will be barely doing only the simple hard work with lowest profit margins. We visualize a sort of inability/ immobility in our local contracting companies.

That is unfortunately created by our public companies over the years while looking for international foreign companies. All we need is courage, at least within our own environment. We should start to construct our own thermal power plants by ourselves.

Foreign companies cannot design; construct power plants to fire our special local indigenous lignite. Only Turkish engineers can do it, since we live all our life with this local fuel.

It is our sincere feeling that those local investors who dare to place order to Chinese contractors have great difficulties, high risk, and high unforeseen cost in their project execution.

Our local private companies are to decide if they will continue to have simple works all the time, and vanish, or make drastic change and start doing new investments on engineering talent by supplying the engineering staff with appropriate software and hardware, plus necessary technical licensing, to enable their companies work as turnkey EPC contractor as leading company.

That is the most important key decision now.

And the earth brothers had worked all together
like a song sung together
was ripped up
by the hooves of horses bred in the Edirné palace,
Nazim Hikmet- THE EPIC OF SHEIK BEDREDDIN

Your comments are always welcome.

Haluk Direskeneli, Prinkipo based Energy Analyst

Top 10 Thermal Power Plants in Turkey

Dear Colleagues, Dear Energy Professional,

In Energy Commission of Chamber of Mechanical engineers in Ankara Turkey, we meet periodically in our Ankara office in order to review current energy issues, and try to make appropriate programs/ panels/ conferences/ seminars/ technical excursions.

Earlier we had following conversation at the end of our regular weekly meeting agenda. In our country we are just pointing the negative issues. We need to point out the positive developments. We should be more proactive.

These are good developments. There are good power plants/organizations, running smoothly, generating power with high efficiency, at high availability rates. We need to review them and appreciate their performance and advise them to be good examples to continue.

In our draft 2009 technical excursion program, we decided to list them and invite our colleagues as well as students to visit these selected sites, review the operations, and write down reports. It is similar to "Top 10 list" of Hurriyet Daily News Sunday editions, http://eniyion.hurriyet.com.tr/

Here is the list of the best 10 successful thermal power plants of my personal choice as of September 2009, in alphabetical order

Adapazari- Gebze ENKA. 770+1540 Mwe Thermal/ Combined cycle power plant/ Natural gas/ Private ownership. Excellent availability and high efficiency.

AkEnerji- KemalPaşa- Two of GE Energy's Frame 6C gas turbines have begun commercial operation at the 130MW Kemalpasa power plant in Izmir, Turkey. GE has supplied a GE 206C combined-cycle package, which includes two Frame 6C gas turbine-generators and one GE steam turbine-generator. Plant tour is expected during “Energy Conference” which will take place on 21-23 October 2009 in Izmir.

BAYMINA- Temelli, Thermal/ Combined cycle power plant/ Natural gas/ Private ownership, 55km west of Ankara. 770 Mwe, 2 each GE Frame 9F gas turbine, CMI licensed Gulermak fabricated 2 each Forced Circulation HRSG with supplementary firing, 1 each 300 Mwe Alstom steam turbine. High efficiency latest technology turbines, high availability, further water treatment on downstream of Ankara Creek.

Cayirhan Thermal Power Plant- Thermal/ Lignite firing/ Private Ownership. 4x165 Mwe. High efficiency and high availability reported. Excellent utilization of local mine mouth lignite.
EnerjiSA KentSA IZMIT. Thermal/ Combined cycle power plant/ Natural gas/ Private ownership, 120 Mwe, 2 each GE Fr.6B gas turbine, DESA and BWG locally fabricated 2 each Natural circulation unfired HRSGs, plus steam Turbine.

Eregli Iron & Steel Mills. 5th Steam Generation unit, Thermal/ low LHV Blast Furnace gas firing/ Private Ownership. High efficiency and high availability reported. Excellent utilization of BFG and CO gas.

Isken Iskenderun Imported Coal firing thermal power plant. Private ownership, 1210 Mwe, 2 each steam boilers plus steam Turbine. Plant visit is scheduled during our “Solar Conference” in 6-7 November 2009 in Mersin. Permission from their management will be requested soon.

SeyitOmer Thermal Power Plant- 4th Unit, Thermal/ Lignite firing/ Public (EUAS) Ownership, 165 MWe Owned by public company EUAS. High efficiency and high availability reported. Excellent utilization of local mine mouth lignite.

KOC Entek Bursa. Thermal/ Combined cycle power plant/ Natural gas/ Private ownership, 146 Mwe, 2 each GE LM6000 plus 1 each GE LM2500 gas turbines, locally fabricated (2+1) each Natural circulation unfired HRSGs, plus one steam Turbine.

ZORLU Energy- Kayseri OSB, Thermal/ Combined cycle power plant/ Natural gas/ Private ownership, 120 Mwe, 2 each GE LM6000 gas turbine, Allborg licensed Enka/Cimtas, fabricated 2 each Forced circulation HRSG with supplementary firing, plus one steam turbine. Plant tour is expected during our “Renewables Conference” which will take place on 16-17 October 2009 in Kayseri.

Above specs are tentative and they could be revised with your assistance/ comments/ contributions later in time.

We would like to visit our selection of the best 10 thermal power plants of Turkey in year 2009 and further plan to write technical articles to explain these excellent thermal power plants.

We have lignite coal as our biggest fuel source and we all agree that we should use that coal

with maximum efficiency and plant availability,
with minimum harm to the mother nature,
with minimum impact on global warming,
with maximized academic research for local fuel compatibility,
with maximized local engineering, and local fabrication,
with maximized local site installation, and local operation

The world has a lot of coal, but right now carbon capture and sequestration is not commercially viable, and no guarantee it will be in the future.

Solar and wind plants are in development and have long term availability problems.

Natural gas has national security implications and does emit CO2 which creates global warming.

The primary energy sources for new capacity and energy efficiency measures need to be chosen using some kind of quantitative risk-assessment scheme that most likely will result in a diverse energy mix that includes nuclear.

We are really not sure how to get around/adapt to the global climate change problem without some drastic changes, even if nuclear energy is implemented.

Moreover, we need to create a stable regulatory and market framework in order to:

• Create an integrated energy market allowing for cross-border energy trade and linked to the EU market ,
• Enhance the security of supply,
• Attract investment in power generation and networks in order to ensure stable and continuous electricity supply,
• Improve the environmental situation in relation with energy supply.

In order to pursue above objectives, the main instrument of the Energy Community Treaty is to be implemented in key sections of the EU acquis.

Please do join me in a celebration for the Turkish Thermal Power Plant industry as we sing a couple of lines of my favorite Jazz singer Billie Holliday,

"The difficult I'll do right now, The impossible will take a little while"

Your comments are always welcome. Kind regards

Haluk Direskeneli, Ankara based Energy Analyst,
Ankara, 10 September 2009, http://www.turkishweekly.net