Over the past two years, Forney’s Intelligent Dynamic Detector (IDD) II Series Flame Detectors, coupled with our IDD 9000 amplifiers, have been successfully installed in six different power plants in India. The country has a vast installed base of coal fired power plants, many of which are undergoing significant Revamp & Modernization (R&M) due to aging of the units. Most of these units burn native Indian coal with high ash content. Given the requirement to sense flames with extra low frequencies produced from high ash coal and lignite, the IDD-IIL flame detector, interfaced with the IDD 9000 amplifier is ideally suited for such plants.
Many of the Indian plants have opposed-fired boilers fitted with low NOx burners. This presents numerous challenges related to cross sensing or “flame-not-detected” conditions such as those cited by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). The IDD II series is equipped with a lead sulfide sensor coupled with solid-state circuitry which amplifies a continuously changing voltage signal to ensure total flame-on/off output to the burner management system. This translates directly to maintaining reliability with the IDD 9000’s digital signal processor enabling advanced tuning capabilities.
Our first IDD 9000 project in India was commissioned in June 2013 on two 255 MWe Thermax B&W boilers operating at the Vadinar Power Company plant (owned by Essar Power) located at Jamnagar in the western state of Gujarat. These opposed-fired boilers produce power for Essar Oil’s refinery operations with the balance sold to the grid for commercial use. Our field service engineers, along with Forney’s representative in India, Lucent Marcons Pvt. Ltd. and the support of the boiler OEM, commissioned these units which to date continue to meet all customer expectations for reliable flame detection and burner management system interface.
Since the 2013 commissioning of our flame detectors and amplifiers at the Essar Power site, 500 additional IDD-II/IDD 9000s flame detector/amplifier sets have been ordered and installed at four different locations of National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) – government-owned power plants, and one independent power producer (IPP) plant Lanco in India. NTPC plants in Korba (3 X 500 MW), Singraulli (2 X 500 MW), Ramagundam (3 X 500 MW), and Farakka (2 X 500 MW) have all ordered and installed our flame detection systems. We have also supplied our flame detectors to Lanco’s Anpara project (2 X 600 MW).
In comparison to new boiler projects, retrofitting flame detectors to existing power plants in India can be highly challenging especially when the supplier has to ensure compatibility of the new flame detector with existing hardware. Forney also supplied the associated cables, panels, power supplies and amplifier units in addition to the flame detectors for the Indian projects.
The installations in India have been very successful to date, offering the highest levels of safety and reliability to the customers.
