Automated Materials Handling for Coal-fired Power Plants

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Autonomous Operation

The coal can be stacked and reclaimed by various methods in order to provide an adequate treatment of the material and perform the necessary mixing and blending process.

The requested quality of the mixing and blending process is ensured by predefined stacking and reclaiming methods like:

• windrow stacking,

• chevron stacking,

• cone shell stacking,

• strata stacking,

• block stacking,

• long travel reclaiming,

• block (bench) reclaiming, or

• pilgrim step reclaiming.

These methods are contained in a control library and can be selected by choice or automatically.

Yard machines are running without any local operator and are only supervised by one operator in the central control room. This operation mode has advantages like:

• constant and optimised belt load and thus optimised material throughput,

• less equipment wear due to less stress factors (no system overload)

• less faults and damages triggered by operator failures,

• reduced labour costs, and

• energy savings by smooth and continuous operation.

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A collision avoidance system is necessary in order to prevent any injuries or equipment damages, whether the machines will be handled by operators or not.

Additionally the warning by the laser scanner and GPS signal (collision between two machines) pile height sensor on the left and right hand side of the boom/bucket wheel help to avoid collisions of the boom with the pile. During fully automated operation access to the pile area is restricted to trained people in safe areas only.

Example Project

The development of the above described system is based beside other projects on the experiences ABB gained during the project execution of the automatic operation for the stockyard system of the Schleenhain lignite mine in Germany which feeds the power plant Lippendorf, which has a power generation capacity of 2 × 993 Megawatt.

The stockyard system comprises of a stacker with a stacking capacity of 4200 tonnes per hour, two portal scrapers with a reclaiming capacity of 2400 tonnes per hour, each, and the conveyor system including the conveyors from the mine and to the power plant. The piles have a capacity of 400 000 tonnes.

The stockyard system as well as the belt conveyor systems are operated fully automatic by an ABB Advant OCS system from a central control room and have been in operation since 1999. Recently ABB executed a complete upgrade to an ABB System 800xA.

The experience has shown that an integrated fully automated stockyard system can contribute to a safe and efficient coal supply of modern power plants. n

References

[1] Annual report 2010 Verein der Kohleimporteure e.V.; http://www.verein-kohlenimporteure.de/wEnglish/index.php?navid=4.

* Peter Mühlbach is Manager Main Technology Center Material Handling at ABB Automation, Germany, E-Mail: peter.muehlbach@de.abb.com

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