Powerful Savings

To light the coal-fired boilers, the power station uses 36 oil injecting lances on each of its three boilers, with half mounted on each side of the vessel. Oil from the lances is blown into the boiler by fans at two rates – a high flow rate to light the coal and a low flow rate to sustain and support the burn.

Previously, the fans were driven by direct-on-line motors, which made it difficult to get the correct oil flow rate required. As part of an energy saving drive as well as a plan to improve the power station’s environmental credentials, the possibility of using variable-speed drives to control the combustion air flow was looked into.

ABB Drives Alliance member, APDS of Bristol, recommended 7.5kW ABB standard drives. 32 ABB drives were installed on particular oil injecting lances with a plan to install 16 more.