ABSTRACT
Low-rank coal, including lignite and low-rank bituminous coal, is one of the most widely used fossil fuels. Biomass is an important type of renewable energy. These fuels have the same characteristic of high moisture content. Drying could be categorized as evaporative drying and non-evaporative drying. Most of the evaporative drying technologies are mature and industrially applicable. However, evaporative drying is an energy intensive process, because extensive heat is needed for the water in the solid fuel to evaporate. To analyze the influence of wet solid fuel drying on the performance of power plants, an overall energy balance calculation for power plants has been carried out. A conventional power plant without the integration of solid fuel dryer is the benchmark for performance evaluation. The main models to analyze the integration of dryers with power plants are developed. The steam at different pressures can be used when the drying atmosphere pressure is varied.
