Waste to Energy / Biomass – Fuel Moisture Feedback

Combustion boilers utilizing fuels with varying moisture can see varying steam loads based on the fuel variability.  The more information the plant knows about the fuel moisture, the better the plant can plan accordingly to provide a more stable steam load.  Since waste to energy fuels have varying components, it is very hard to measure the fuel moisture on a real time basis prior to entering the furnace.  The same can be seen in biomass boiler applications.

Another option to direct fuel moisture measurement is to measure the flue gas moisture after combustion at the economizer outlet of the boiler.  The moisture in the fuel is released in combustion and the flue gas moisture content is direct feedback to the moisture entering the furnace.  In conjunction with the flue gas moisture, steam load and feed rate are also measured.  Between these three measurements, the moisture content can be determined and the plant can optimize the fuel pit.

Additional advantages of measuring the flue gas moisture is that it can provide feed forward to dry scrubber applications.  The dry scrubber inlet humidity in conjunction with the temperature drop across the scrubber, can determine the scrubber outlet dew point temperature.  Knowing the approach to dew point (dry bulb temperature – dew point temperature) to the scrubber baghouse will protect the baghouse from corrosion and blinding while optimizing lime usage.

What is unique about our H2O sensor is that it is the only in sensor in the world that will work without maintenance at the economizer outlet of a solid fuel boiler.