Last week, IFRF investigators joined other RELCOM partners at the CIUDEN Technology Development Center for CO2 Capture in Cubillos del Sil, Spain, to plan parallel tests on CIUDEN’s unique 20MW oxy-coal demonstration facility. 

The meeting was organised by new IFRF Member CIUDEN, also a partner in RELCOM, who coordinated the visit to the plant and provided the detailed description of the facility and the boiler characteristics.   Attending the meeting, together with IFRF, were Technische Universität München, Institute of Combustion and Power Plant Technology (IFK), Glamorgan University and Institute of Power Engineering. Their mandate was to propose the basis of a fruitful campaign on the boiler, the key characteristic of which is using different methodologies, in parallel, during the majority of the testing under oxyfuel firing conditions.

RELCOM – Reliable and Efficient Combustion of Oxygen/Coal/Recycled Flue Gas Mixtures is a four year, EU funded project aimed at improving the design of full-scale early demonstration oxyfuel plant.  The project is structured  to undertake a series of applied research, development and demonstration activities involving both experimental studies and modelling work.

The campaign planned last week exemplifies the unique and exceptional opportunities that RELCOM provides: specialised testing and instrumentation will be used to measure in-furnace gas temperature, heat fluxes, gas species and deposits at this demonstration scale.

Tests are also planned at ENEL’s 3 MW  facility  this year in the frame of the RELCOM  project.  In this phase, IFRF, USTUTT, TUM and IEN will each undertake measurements using their own probes so as to ensure that the same measurements are available on both demonstration facilities.

Test programmes and dates will be published in MNM and on the RELCOM web site.

During the visit to CIUDEN, IFRF and the other partners had the opportunity to participate in a meeting for another EU FP7 project on the topic of CCS:  FLEXI BURN CFB.  The project aims to develop and demonstrate a power plant concept that allows flexible high-efficiency air-firing of fossil fuels with biomass and oxygen-firing with Carbon Capture and Storage which provides the potential for almost 100% reduction in CO2. The use of Circulating Fluid Bed (CFB) technology allows the utilisation of indigenous coals and biomass with CCS. 

As for the RELCOM meeting, participants had the opportunity to visit the CIUDEN demonstration facility, including the world’s largest operating oxygen-firing CFB (30 MW).

FLEXI BURN CFB is coordinated by Dr. Antti Tourunen of Finnish  IFRF Member VTT.