Thermal Power Plants

A thermal power plant has two storage problems at opposite ends of the process: coal going in and ash coming out. Both quietly lose capacity, and both are usually discovered the same way — a feeder starving, or the ash system tripping.

Where we work in your plant

• Coal and pet coke bunkers — hang-ups at the throat, rat-holes, wet-coal bridging, dead stock keyed to the wall
• Fly ash silos — wall build-up, ratholing, buried aeration pads
• Bottom ash and boiler ash hoppers
• Economiser and ESP hoppers — accumulations that choke ash handling
• Lignite, biomass and coke storage
• Extraction points, gates and conveying lines
• Rail cars and wagon tipplers — frozen and compacted coal that will not discharge

Inside the boiler house

Storage is the obvious half. The deposits that actually cost you heat rate build up inside the boiler itself, and most of them can be dealt with without taking the unit off load.

What it costs while it waits

• Feeder starvation and mill trips — unplanned interruptions to generation
• Lost live capacity — a bunker cycled at a fraction of its rating, still insured and maintained in full
• Ash evacuation constraints — when the silo cannot take ash, options narrow fast
• It compounds — build-up hardens with age, so the job only gets longer

Burning refuse rather than coal? The ash is stickier and far less predictable, and it blocks in different places — see waste-to-energy & incinerator cleaning.