| | December 20208FLEXIBLE OPERATION OF THERMAL POWER PLANT FOR INTEGRATION OF RENEWABLE GENERATIONBy Anand Bansal, Managing Director, Uniper Energy Services MENAI n current Indian power scenario, a substantial growth of renewable energy has been planned which would significantly alter the energy mix and energy market scenario in India. The fast growth of renewable power leads to a more volatile residual load due to their fluctuat-ing nature. To balance the variable electricity supply from renewable energy sources, Coal fired power plants need to be more flexible in terms of possessing resilience to fre-quent start-ups, meeting major and rapid load changes, and providing frequency control duties that makes them to be reliable power for safe and stable operation of grid.European StoryEuropean Power market has changed significantly over the past decade. The Global recession brought down the de-mand. subscript prices have dramatically fallen as a result of oversupply. US shale gas has increased US coal exports making coal generation inexpensive than gas. However global gas prices have oil prices putting coal at the mar-gin. Incentive schemes designed to deliver European 2020 targets have prompted a sturdy and regular growth of Re-newable. Further, the EU has set itself a long-term goal of lowering greenhouse gas emissions by way of 80-95 per-cent, while as compared to 1990 levels, by 2050. All these factors changed the operating regime of the gas and coal-based power plants from base load to flexible. Relevance to IndiaThe primary objective of the Government is to provide 24×7 power to all with reliability, affordability and envi-ronmental friendly. Integration of large quantities of RE power in the grid has significant challenges that are both technical and economic in nature. From the present level of 330 GW (as on Nov'2017) it is targeted to grow to 550 GW in March'2022 and further to 746 GW in March 2030 (as per IEA projections).Since the availability of Gas generation, Hydro poten-tial, and storage system is limited, grid balancing seems to be difficult without substantial coal-based generation. Subsequently, base load plants will have to Ramp up/down and shutdown/start-up with greater frequency.Thermal generators need to get transformed from base load to Flexible/backup generation and ancillary service provider in conjunction with enhancing environmental performance, improving efficiency, improving flexibility in order to be competitive and sustainable.Thermal power has entered a period of fundamental change but the sector's evolving existence is crucial for In-dia's electricity stability as a key pillar of the future energy system. Challenges for Conventional Generation PlantTechnical Challenges:As the power plants shift from base load to flexible oper-ations, they result in significantly increased occurrences of thermal transients in the material of critical high-tem-perature boiler and turbine components. These transients and other operational factors associated with the flexible operation, have following effects on coal-fired generating assets:VANTAGE POINT
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