COAL BLENDING

Various pressures on plant owners are forcing them to use a variety of coals from different sources, including buying shipments of coal on the spot market. Coal suppliers are sourcing more diverse coals and combining different coals to meet client purchase specifications. In both scenarios, coals are being combined to produce a blend suitable for utilisation. This course seeks to address the technical and practical aspects of coal blending, highlight the potential consequences of incompatible coals being blended and explore some of the methods that are employed to ensure successful coal blending.
The latest global and regional forecasts for the coal markets and new coal-fired plant will be provided for the period up to and beyond 2020.

On completion of the course, participants will have an understanding of coal physical and chemical characteristics, be aware of which properties exhibit linear and non-linear behaviour when combined and have a basic appreciation of the activities involved in the evaluation of candidate coals and proposed blends. From a practical point of view, participants will gain an understanding of the impacts of the blend on the power plant equipment items, from coal handling through the boiler to the dust collection plant. Participants will gain an awareness of some of the theoretical characterisation techniques which are used to evaluate coal blends and have an overview of practical issues associated with the implementation of coal blending at a utility scale.

This training course will be valuable to participants who need a fundamental understanding of the rationale for and mechanics of coal blending. The course is targeted at technical persons involved either with coal supply or coal utilisation, needing to gain an understanding of both theoretical and practical aspects of coal blending. Attendees may include: utility coal procurement personnel, plant operations staff, plant engineers and operators, thermal coal marketing or customer support personnel, coal traders as well as infrastructure and logistics officials.

Rod Boyd has considerable experience as a mechanical engineer in the energy industry providing specialist services to local and international clients in the areas of fuel evaluation and assessment, coal fired boiler design and operation, combustion science and technology, control of combustion related emissions, plant performance improvement, advanced coal technologies and power plant due diligence studies.

Dr Boyd was previously the Principal Engineer / Boiler and Combustion Systems with the NSW State owned utility Pacific Power and was responsible for the evaluation of prospective coal supplies and optimisation of plant performance on the 10,000MW of coal fired plant in NSW.

He has provided specialist services to power utilities, equipment manufacturers, coal producers and research institutions on coal fired boiler design and operation. Dr Boyd has published more than 30 journal and conference papers on topics related to coal utilisation. He has provided training in coal technology to power utility engineers from Australia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

This training course has a limited attendance for up to 20 participants only. Sessions commence at 9am on all days, with short intervals at 10.30am and 3.30pm respectively. Refreshments will be provided in the short intervals. Lunch will be provided at 12:30pm for 1 hour. Sessions will end at 5pm on all days.