Abstract

Circulating fluidized bed (CFB) boilers has realized the clean and efficient utilization of inferior coal like gangue and coal slime, high sulfur coal, anthracite, petroleum coke, oil shale and other resources. As a country with the largest amount of CFB boilers and the largest installed capacity in the world, China has 440 100–600 MW_e CFB boilers with a total capacity of 82.29 GW_e, including 227 units of 135 MW_e, 95 units of 300 MW_e, and 24 supercritical units. The statistics of typical 100–300 MW_e CFB boilers showed that the average number of unplanned shut-down was only 0.37 times per year, among which the 135 MW_e was 0.26 times per year and 300 MW_e was 0.46 times per year. The auxiliary power ratio of some 300 MW_e CFB boilers based on flow-pattern reconstruction can be reduced to about 4%, which is closed to the same level of pulverized coal (PC) boilers. This paper summarizes the development process and application status of China’s large-scale CFB boilers, analyzes the characteristics and technical performance of the iconic units, and introduces solutions to the problems such as water wall wear and bottom ash cooling.