Cost Model of Industrial Fluidized Bed Boilers

Abstract

Fluidized bed combustion in industrial applications offers many advantages from the resource utilization and the air quality points of view. A cash flow model is developed to predict the economic consequences of an investment in an industrial coal‐fired atmospheric fluidized bed combustion boiler. The return on investment is calculated for boilers in the range of 50,000 to 500,000 lb/hr. The investment costs range from $3.8 to $28.8 million, with calculated returns on investment from 8.4% to 14.2%. These returns are not adequate to justify the investment decision. A sensitivity analysis shows that the most influential variables are the costs of the fossil fuels—the net difference between the displaced natural gas and residual fuel oil vs. the coal used in the fluidized bed boiler.