As more renewable-energy capacity was added globally, thermal coal-fired power stations were likely, in future, to operate only for short periods of time to balance the shortfall in electricity when renewable capacity was not available, the University of Johannesburg’s Professor Bilainu Oboirien said at the recent Fossil Fuel Foundation’s Clean Coal Technologies conference.
He noted, however, that the start-up costs of coal-fired power stations during load cycling could be high and suggested that those costs be reduced through the use of cheap alternative fuels.
Oboirien and some of his colleagues have embarked on the South Africa-Poland project, which seeks to investigate the use of alternative fuels to reduce the high start-up cost of coal boilers in South Africa and Poland.
There are, however, legislative, technological and environmental challenges.
Energy System“The properties of selected liquid fuels will be determined to analyse their potential application in the energy system. “Some of the selected fuels will be investigated using a technical-scale combustion chamber with a capacity of 150 kW,” Oboirien noted.
Overall, he believes the outcome of the study will help to shape the required policy for the transition from a largely coal-based energy system to one with a significant renewable-energy contribution.