Boiler efficiency estimation from hydrogen content in fuel

More than 45 % of world's electricity is generated from thermal power plants by utilizing coal as a fuel. Boilers and turbines are the most basic components in thermal power plants. Efficient utilization of heat energy produced from chemical composition of fuel assures enhanced electricity production. Performance degradation of boiler is mainly due to boiler losses. This paper presents innovative method to predict boiler efficiency using DASY Lab software suite. The prediction of boiler efficiency is based on the coefficient of correlation between boiler efficiency, the boiler loss due to hydrogen content of fuel and Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). Linear regression method is used to obtain the line of best fit. Loss due to hydrogen content in fuel has a strong correlation with the boiler efficiency. Hence, this method uses loss due to hydrogen content in fuel and simplifies the steps in finding boiler efficiency. The hydrogen content of fuel, temperature of flue gas, ambient temperature, and gross calorific value of fuel are used for finding the efficiency of boiler. The maximum error in predicting the boiler efficiency is 1.82 %, which signifies the authenticity of the proposed method. The predicted boiler efficiency is validated using data from an industry.