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HIGH EFFICIENCY IGCC USING ADVANCED TURBINE, AIR SEPARATION UNIT, AND GASIFICATION TECHNOLOGY

By

Fred C. Jahnke Texaco Inc. Masao Ishikawa Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Tom Rathbone BOC Gases

Presented at the 1998 Gasification Technologies Conference October 4-7, 1998 San Francisco, California

HIGH EFFICIENCY IGCC USING ADVANCED TURBINE, AIR SEPARATION UNIT, AND GASIFICATION TECHNOLOGY
Abstract Over the past years, the efficiency of integrated gasification combined cycle systems has continually improved, typically in small steps, but sometimes in larger steps as new technology becomes available. Such a large step is about to occur through the use of the next generation of gas turbines. At the same time, incremental improvements are being made in the air separation unit and the gasification unit. This paper calculates the impact of using new technology that will be commercially available in the very near future. The cycle used incorporates the advanced Mitsubishi Heavy Industries M501G gas turbine, an advanced air separation unit design from BOC Gases that balances investment with power consumption, and advanced gasification configuration designs that improve the overall efficiency and reduce cost. Basic Assumptions The assumptions used for this paper are for the Japanese Independent Power Producer (IPP) market. The Japanese market tends to have a longer lead-time due to strict environmental regulations than typical projects in other parts of the world. For this reason, advanced gas turbines bid into the current IPP market will still gain significant commercial experience operating on natural gas prior to delivery of the gas turbine for the IGCC. Japan also requires a design that has extremely low emissions, both in SOx and NOx, and a design, which must typically cycle between 75% or less and 100% net output on a daily basis. The feedstock is a heavy vacuum residue typically available at low cost from the refineries within Japan. Because gasification can easily handle high sulfur, high viscosity fuel, the addition of the gasification unit provides greater flexibility for the refiner in terms of operation and crude quality. Standard ISO ambient conditions at 15 C and sea level were assumed. Both the oil feed assumptions and ambient condition assumptions are shown in Figures 1 and 2, respectively. This study assumes a partial integration of the air separation unit (ASU) with 50% of the air required by the ASU supplied by the gas turbine. All of the nitrogen from the ASU is returned to the turbine. An overall simplified flow diagram of the design is shown in Figure 3. Summary Description The combustion turbine used for this study is the advanced Mitsubishi Heavy Industries M501G design. This unit operates at 60 Hz and produces 290 MW of output with syngas feed. This advanced design uses a high-pressure ratio of approximately 20:1 as well as a high firing temperature. The HRSG steam cycle is integrated with the process steam production, and is also used to provide heat to the process gas to improve the overall efficiency.

The air separation unit design was developed by BOC Gases. Rather than use a standard design optimized for minimal capital cost, the current design is optimized with a balance between capital and power consumption. The optimization assumed $1200-$1500 per kilowatt value for power savings relative to capital cost. This value includes the overall capital cost of the IGCC plus a capitalized operating cost. This philosophy, combined with BOC's advanced technology, has allowed a significant reduction in power consumption by the air separation unit. The gasification design was developed with an emphasis on maximizing efficiency and reliability, while minimizing capital cost. Because of the high metals in the oil feed and the desire to minimize waste disposal, this led to a hybrid gasification design using both quench and syngas cooler gasifiers. This also allows the inclusion of advanced soot handling technology, which minimizes waste disposal and auxiliary loads. Finally, using two gasifiers in parallel provides the high reliability on the syngas production, which is required in the power market of Japan. Japanese Market Because of the long lead times and IPP bidding rules of the Japanese IPP market, projects starting up in 2005 and later are expected to be bid next year. This market may be the most likely area for the first project based on an advanced gas turbine with syngas feed since more operating experience will be obtained during the long permitting phase of a project. The market influences the design chosen. Priorities listed in order are as follows: Low emissions Reliability Efficiency Cost

In addition, base load operation is defined differently and daily turndown to 75% or lower of the normal output is normally mandatory. Higher levels of turndown are favored in the power pricing even when not mandatory. Turndown efficiency can be as important as base load efficiency since over 50% of the operating time will be in this mode. Figure 4 shows a typical "base load" operation in Japan. In the USA, this type of operation would more likely be viewed as a "load following" operation. Low emissions are an inherent benefit of IGCC technology. In Japan, emissions limits are lower than in the USA and the design includes COS hydrolysis and SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) technology. With these units, the already low NOx and SOx emissions of an IGCC are reduced by an order of magnitude. We wished to minimize water and solids emissions also and chose a design which recycles the unconverted carbon (soot) to extinction and reduces contaminants in the blow down water. Reliability is critical in Japan and this need is reflected in the penalties for any unplanned downtime. While in the USA, back-up fuel provides the reliability in power production, in Japan,

the cost of the low sulfur back-up fuel is very high. The two gasifier design provides the higher reliability needed. The gasification process allows the use of low value feedstocks without increasing emissions. While the cost of low sulfur fuel in Japan is very high, the feed to the gasification unit can be chosen to obtain a more moderate fuel cost. This is particularly true when the benefits of the ability to use very low quality feed is factored into a refinery crude oil selection and product distribution optimization. Nevertheless, efficiency is important, especially considering CO2 emissions. Capital costs are always important. The cost of capital (i.e. interest rate) in Japan, however, remains low. Thus, the priority of capital cost is lower than in other locations. The system used for this study considers the implications of these market needs. System Description Gasification Section Please refer to Figure 5 when reviewing the gasification system description. The gasification system used for this study was based upon the established Texaco Gasification Process. The current design is unusual, however, in that it uses a combination of both quench and syngas cooler configurations to provide both high efficiency and high reliability. In the quench unit, the heavy oil is gasified and the syngas is immediately cooled by direct water injection in the quenching section of the gasifier. All entrained particulates are scrubbed from the gas using a water scrubbing system. The clean gas is then cooled and intermediate pressure steam is produced from the cooling. In the syngas cooler gasification unit, the hot syngas is cooled prior to scrubbing. By capturing the heat from the syngas prior to quenching and scrubbing, a higher pressure steam can be produced, which is integrated into the high pressure side of the steam cycle. After cooling in the syngas cooler, the syngas is quenched and scrubbed using a water scrubbing system, and the clean gas from both gasifiers is combined prior to final cooling to ambient temperatures. This system was selected as a compromise between emissions, reliability, and cost. As shown in Figure 1, vacuum residue contains significant metals that have the potential to build up in the recycled soot and foul heat exchange surfaces, particularly in the syngas cooler. The current design avoids the cooler fouling without resorting to soot export by recycling the soot only to the quench gasifier. This practice has been used commercially in one of Texaco's licensee units and been shown to be effective. For Japan, this system is a natural choice. It avoids emissions from a separate soot handling system, it incorporates two gasifiers which increases reliability, and it improves efficiency compared to a 100% quench unit. In addition, by turning down the quench unit during night and weekend operation, a high efficiency is maintained. Night operation typically comprises 54% of the time and produces 47% of the power generated for units operating at 75% load at night. This configuration has less than 1% efficiency loss at turndown to 75% load.

Although not shown in Figure 3, in Japan, a COS hydrolysis unit is employed prior to cooling the syngas to ambient. This unit converts the small fraction of COS into H2S, reducing its level to below 25 ppm. Because the acid gas removal unit much more readily absorbs H2S, this allows the syngas from the acid gas removal to have its total sulfur level readily reduced below 25 ppm. Recent studies have shown removal of sulfur to a 3 ppm level in the syngas is practical. See Figure 6. The acid gas removal system is designed to maximize H2S removal while minimizing CO2 removal. There are many well-proven acid gas removal technologies. Gasification units for IGCC applications have been designed and operated using amine (MDEA), Selexol and Rectisol systems. The current study assumes an amine acid gas removal system. The acid gas stream from the AGR system is routed to a Claus unit to produce an elemental sulfur by-product. At this point in the process, we have clean cold syngas at high pressure. The gas is heated, expanded, and routed to the gas turbine for combustion. The current design incorporates proprietary configurations to integrate the gas cooling and handling system with power production in the most efficient and cost effective manner. Air Separation Unit The design for the air separation unit (ASU) is based on a high-pressure ASU with half of the air required by the ASU supplied from the combustion turbine. This level of integration was chosen to allow the ASU to operate independently of the gas turbine, but still obtain the efficiency advantage of an integrated system. Optimization of this integration level remains a future item for review. In developing air separation (ASU) cycles for integration with the newer, more efficient gas turbines, the challenge has been to effectively utilize and mesh with the higher pressures at which these gas turbines tend to operate. When the ASU is operated at higher pressures, the relative volatilities decrease, making the separation more difficult, although the pressure ratio between the column feeds and products becomes tighter, making the separation that does occur more energy efficient . The combination of the number of distillation stages and the amount of reflux available for the distillation columns then needs to be adjusted to compensate for the decrease in relative volatilities experienced when column operating pressures are increased. The first factor in this regard is reflux ratio. If pressure drop factors are excluded, and a large number of distillation stages are used, then optimum efficiency is obtained when the column is operated without excess reflux. However, for a single feed , adiabatic column section, the minimum reflux at the limiting stage will result in excess reflux on the other stages, and a reversible process is not obtained.

In order to obtain reversibility, it is necessary that heat is added or removed from each stage to bring it to its minimum reflux requirement. Extra reflux beyond this requires additional power and hence, reduces cycle efficiency. The Q-T cycle diagrams of Figures 7 and 8 show the heat flow profile effects on the conventional and the improved cycle thermodynamics. The use of intermediate condensers and reboilers is the classical method of improving distillation efficiency. There is a less well-known method involving the use of feed streams of differing composition and this method generally gives a better process improvement where only one or two such devices are considered. The feed modification device shown in Figure 8, makes it possible to generate three feeds of different composition from a single liquid feed. The main liquid feed is fed to a separator pot operating at a pressure above that of the main distillation column. The pressure in the separation device is adjusted such that the temperature is essentially equal to the temperature at the bottom of the column. The same heating medium can be used to reboil both the separator pot and the distillation device. The liquid stream taken from the bottom of the separator pot is divided into two parts; the first part is fed to the main distillation column, while the second part is reduced in pressure and evaporated, thus condensing the vapor at the top of the pot. Both the evaporated liquid and the condensed vapor are then fed to the main distillation column. The effect of the feed separation device is shown on the Q-T diagram of Figure 8. Much of the separation work in the region surrounding the column feeds is transferred into the separator pot. It becomes possible to reduce the main condenser and reboiler loads by an amount on the order of 20-25% with the appropriate use of this device, thereby saving such an amount from the column separation work. This type of separation device is quite adaptable to different types of separation problems , and very often it can be of benefit to include some distillation stages therein, which gives the possibility of further enhancement. Furthermore, the device can be optimized to provide the degree of reflux enhancement necessary to provide efficient column performance at the particular conditions most suitable for gas turbine integration. Gas Turbine/Steam Turbine The advanced Mitsubishi Heavy Industries M501G turbine is the basis for this study. Designed for both simple and combined cycle applications, the M501G can operate on conventional gas turbine fuel as well as on oil/coal derived low specific energy gas produced in an integrated gasification combined cycle power plant (IGCC). Many advanced component technologies ; a high efficiency compressor, a steam cooled combustor, a high temperature turbine, etc., are employed in G series turbine to achieve excellent combined cycle performance. Especially, the closed circuit steam cooled combustor is developed for the first time in the world, which uses steam generated in the heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) as a coolant and returns to the Steam Turbine as a hot reheated steam. Several basic long established Mitsubishi design concepts and philosophies are retained in the

design, such as the two bearing, single-shaft construction, cold-end generator drive and axial exhaust. These fundamental long time proven concepts used by Mitsubishi for over 30 years have now become industrial standards. The axial exhaust concept, introduced in 1972, has been retained for its improved performance and plant arrangement advantages when applied to combined cycle power plants. In addition, G series are developed based on these concepts; to deliver proven features from F series, to introduce the most advanced technologies in aerodynamic design, heat transfer design and new materials, G technologies, but not to exceed the conventional design criteria in industrial engines, not to exceed the turbine inlet temperature to the extent where the same levels of metal temperature and NOx can be maintained as those of the existing F series, and to carry out thorough verification tests before the production of actual gas turbine to secure high reliability. The M501G gas turbine consists of a 17-stage, high efficiency axial compressor, a combustion chamber equipped with 16 combustors arranged in circular array around the engine and a 4-stage turbine. The gas turbine is coupled to the generator and/or steam turbine at the compressor end. Ambient air is drawn through the inlet manifold and inlet casing into the compressor. It is pressurized to approximately 20 atmospheres and fed into the combustors, where it is mixed with fuel and ignited, raising the temperature of the mixture of air and combustion products. The products of combustion then expand through the turbine, dropping in pressure and temperature as the heat energy is converted into mechanical work. A portion of the power thus developed by the turbine is used to drive the electrical generator. The expanded gases are then exhausted into the atmosphere through an exhaust stack for a simple cycle plant or a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) in a cogeneration or combined cycle plant. As shown in Figure 9, the combustion turbine is a single shaft, two-bearing, solid-coupling, simple cycle unit, containing: Multi-stage (17) axial-flow air compressor featuring: Variable inlet guide vanes. Horizontally split casing giving access to internal parts. Compressor blade rings. Individually removable stainless steel blading. Cold end drive with solid coupling to generator. Combustion system including the following: Sixteen can-type combustors in circular array. Steam cooled combustor wall. Combustors removable with insulated cylinder cover in place. Low emission design. Ignition system including retractable igniters. Four stage reaction type turbine featuring: Advanced cooling technology. 7

Horizontally split casing giving access to internal parts. Alloy turbine blades individually removable. Cooled air-to-air cooler with cooling air filtered. Individual first stage vanes removable with cylinder cover in place. Low loss axial exhaust system ideal for waste heat recovery.

On April 7, 1997, the first M501G gas turbine achieved full-load operation at MHI's Takasago Combined Cycle Power Plant using LNG fuel. The heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) is optimized for integration with the gasification system. This allows the process steam produced from the gasification section to be utilized in a way that maximizes the overall power production. In addition, boiler feed water heating and syngas heating is integrated with the system. Results The performance summary for the base load and turndown load is shown in Figure 10. We are now able to achieve 46.7% efficiency (LHV) using a design which incorporates Texaco's robust quench gasifier. At the same time, we are able to achieve a 45.8 % efficiency (LHV) during turndown operation. This high efficiency has been achieved with a low capital cost of 860$/kw. Emissions remain low, as was shown in Figure 6. These results show a substantial improvement compared to older IGCC designs(1). Although we are using advanced technology, due to time constraints, we were unable to fully optimize the current design. During the study, we have identified areas where we should be able to improve these results through further optimization. For example, the higher compression ratio and resulting higher pressure of the extraction air and return nitrogen may favor a different level of air extraction. We hope to carefully review these results in the future to further improve the design and efficiency. This advanced high efficiency IGCC is expected to be the technology of choice for power production in all locations where low cost natural gas is unavailable. Conclusion Nine IGCC units incorporating Texaco technology are currently in operation or under construction. While we expect many more IGCC's in the future, these past designs have, in many cases, only narrowly won over alternate technology configurations. In some cases, the inclusion of environmental benefits was required to make the designs economical. With the new advanced IGCC described in this paper, not only will we achieve extremely low emissions, but we will do so with a technology that can produce power at a low cost, irrespective of environmental considerations.

References (1) High Efficiency Quench Gasification Combined Cycles with Integrated Air Separation, Anand et al, EPRI Eleventh Conference, October 22,1992, San Francisco, California (2) Coke Gasification Costs, Economics, & Commercial Applications, Jahnke et al, March 1719, 1996, 1996 NPRA Annual Meeting, San Antonio, Texas Gas Turbine 501G/701G, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., 1998 Publication.

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