NEWS RELEASE                                                                                                    FEBRUARY 2015

Dry Scrubbing Market Growing in Many Directions

Most of the market for coal-fired power plant flue gas desulfurization (FGD) is served by wet limestone systems which produce wallboard quality gypsum.  However, according to the analysis in FGD Market and Strategiespublished by the McIlvaine Company, dry scrubbers are starting to gain traction. There are a number of reasons:

  • Concern about water usage particularly in arid areas in the U.S. and China,
  • Ability to scale systems up to 500 MW in a single module,
  • New methods of converting the flyash/gypsum mixture into salable byproducts,
  • Saturation of the gypsum market,
  • Concerns about capturing other pollutants such as SO3,
  • Regulations which dictate minimal capital investment (U.S.).

The U.S. has the most dry scrubber installations. Most are of the spray drier design.  But the recent Dry Fork installation of a circulating dry scrubber proved its ability to perform at the 300 MW scale in one module.   There are less than 80,000 MW of dry scrubbers on power plants worldwide. The U.S. has more than 25,000 MW. China now as an equally large number of units.

Chinese Dry   Scrubber Systems by Supplier

Company

Dry FGD MWx 1000

Fujian   Longking

10

Wuhan   Kaidi

4

Wuhan   Jingyuan

3

Guandong   Electric Power Design

2

Zhejiang   Feida

2

Zhejiang   Atmosphere EPG

1

Others  

5

Total

27

 

The other development is dry sorbent injection (DSI).  More than 50 power plants in the U.S. have opted for DSI primarily for SO2 removal. This is a high operating low capital cost solution.  It is unique to the U.S. due to environmental regulations which discourage new power plants and raise concern about the future of existing power plants.

 A number of plants use DSI just for SO3 removal ahead of the air heater. This allows greater heat reduction in the air preheater as well as limiting corrosion.

The need for DSI was in part caused by installation of selective catalytic reduction (SCR) units for NOx control. They convert 0.5 to 1 percent of the SO2 in the flue gas to SO3.  Since SCR is now widely utilized, the demand for DSI has risen.

For more information on: N027 FGD Market and Strategies, click on:http://home.mcilvainecompany.com/index.php/markets/2-uncategorised/107-n027