Coleson Cove power station

Canadian power station fits FGD for 25 more years of service and constructs a new chimney with PennguardTM lined flues.

The public utility for the Province of New Brunswick in Canada, NB Power, operates a mix of fossil fired, nuclear and hydro generating stations. One of the largest stations in NB Power’s fleet is the 3 x 350 MW oil fired Coleson Cove Generating Station near the Atlantic coastal town of Saint John. With the price of oil increasing at an unpredictable rate, NB Power had to plan for the future role of the station, keeping in mind expected energy needs and economics as well as emissions regulations. Based on a study of many different options, NB Power decided to switch to a lower cost fuel, while also fitting state of the art emissions reduction equipment and building a new 183 m high chimney.

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The Coleson Cove station plays a strategically important role in NB Power’s generating fleet. The station is a very flexible generator, which can easily follow fluctuating power demands. In addition, the station offers back-up capacity to NB Power’s large nuclear station as well as to its hydro capacity, which has low availability in winter. To convert the Coleson Cove station into a low cost generator, NB Power decided to make the station suitable for firing Orimulsion, a more economical fuel, which is essentially a mix of 70% bitumen and 30 % water. Like heavy oil, Orimulsion contains sulphur and as a part of the conversion project, NB Power also decided to install highly efficient flue gas desulphurization (FGD) plants. In addition to the FGD absorbers, the station has been equipped with wet electrostatic precipitators (wet ESP’s) to minimize emissions of sulphur trioxide and fine particles.

Directly downstream of the twin FGD absorbers and wet ESP’s, the Coleson Cove station has also constructed a new, 183 m high concrete chimney. The new chimney will operate as a “wet stack”, carrying treated, non-reheated flue gas. The two, 7.0 m diameter carbon steel flues in the new chimney are internally protected by the PennguardTM Block Lining System.