Coal Plant Saves on Maintenance Upgrades and Operating Costs

The savings stem from implementing Suez’s mobile water solutions with InSight.

By Editors of Power Engineering

SEEKING TO reduce its operating costs and environmental footprint, the Conemaugh Generating Station in New Florence, Pennsylvania, utilizes SUEZ’s mobile water solutions to produce boiler feedwater. By using the mobile demineralizer with InSight, the coal-fired power plant will gain $220,000 in annual operating cost savings, reduce chemicals associated with the make-up demineralized (DI) systems and optimize water consumption, which subsequently reduces treated wastewater discharge into the Conemaugh River.

Plant operations have been relying solely on mobile demineralizers since June 2017, and anticipated savings are on track to meet or exceed expectations. By using SUEZ’s mobile water trailers, the Conemaugh Generating Station avoided a required maintenance upgrade to its existing pretreatment equipment–a savings of nearly $700,000.

 The mobile demineralized trailers are enabled by SUEZ’s InSight, an asset performance management solution that uses advanced data and predictive analytics to ensure optimal levels of performance and output. This system also provides key operating details including the overall trailer performance with water flow, capacity remaining, feedwater TDS and anion and final effluent conductivity. Daily reports from InSight allow the plant to minimize oversight of trailer operations and further reduce operating costs associated with production of DI water.

 “SUEZ’s mobile water trailers with InSight enabled us to track our water quality in real time. This strategy meant that the Conemaugh Generating Station did not have to undertake a costly upgrade, we operate more efficiently and we could continue our mission to provide power to the citizens of Western Pennsylvania,” said Chet Sewalk, station chemist, Conemaugh Generating Station.

The 1,700-megawatt coal-fired power plant is operated by GenOn, and reducing annual operating costs is a key goal to stay competitive in wholesale power markets.

For many years, SUEZ has supplied chemicals to treat the cooling tower and influent and effluent clarification. This experience with the customer’s plant helped confirm for the customer that SUEZ could successfully reduce costs for water production using the MobileFlow* trailers enabled with InSight.

“SUEZ’s mobile water treatment systems are a prime example of how companies can improve their economic and environmental performance by letting SUEZ handle the water operations so they can focus on their core business. The Conemaugh Generating Station project demonstrates the synergies of our mobile, InSight remote monitoring capabilities and chemical solutions to help power plant operators save money and resources,” said Kevin Cassidy, global leader, engineered systems, SUEZ–Water Technologies & Solutions.