NEWS RELEASE                                                                                         February 2019

Fabric Filter Market for Coal Fired Electric Generators is Growing Faster than the Industry

Coal fired power plants around the world will increase expenditures for fabric filter systems, bags and third party maintenance services by more than seven percent per year. The total market will be $3 billion by 2020.

There are a number of positive and negative impacts on future fabric filter related sales to coal fired generators around the world.

• The coal fired boiler capacity in Europe and the U.S. will shrink but will be more than offset by new Asian capacity.
• New plants will continue to select precipitators for more new capacity than will choose fabric filters. However the share for fabric filters will slowly increase.
• Some existing plants with precipitators which are not meeting emission limits are installing bags within the existing precipitator shell.
• Dry scrubbing and Dry Sorbent Injection (DSI) are gaining market share although wet limestone FGD is still the dominant choice.
• Catalytic ceramic filters are not expected to gain much penetration by 2020 but will potentially be the first choice for power plants in later years.
• New technical developments are shaping the forecast and create substantial unknowns.

Fabric filters can produce consistently low particulate emission rates. They are not impacted by changes in the coal. Electrostatic precipitator performance is affected by coal variations. Where mercury regulations are stringent activated carbon injected ahead of the fabric filter can result in higher removal rates than injection ahead of a precipitator.

Dry scrubbing involves less capital expense than limestone wet scrubbing. Direct sorbent injection has very low capital expense other than the fabric filter. However, reagent costs are high. Where stringent regulations are forcing scrubber additions but boiler life is limited, dry methods are more cost effective.

The fabric filter filter cake provides final absorption in dry scrubbing and DSI systems. Presently the cleaning of filter bags is done to optimize particulate removal. There is significant potential to optimize acid gas removal as well as particulate with new cleaning technology. Ceramic filters with embedded catalyst in conjunction with DSI are the lowest cost approach to remove particulate, NOx and acid gas. This is because only one vessel instead of three are needed. The approach has worked well with 3 meter bags on applications with relatively low air volumes. Longer bags are now being commercialized. This could lead to widespread use by coal fired electric generators.

A forecast of this market potential is provided in N021 World Fabric Filter and Element Market

All the existing and proposed fabric filter installations on coal fired boilers are tracked in 42EI Utility Tracking System

For more information contact Bob McIlvaine at 847 784 0012 ext. 122 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.