Evaluating Electrification of Fossil-Fuel-Fired Boilers for Decarbonization Using Discrete-Event Simulation

Decarbonizing fossil-fuel usage is crucial in mitigating the impacts of climate change. The burning of fossil fuels in boilers during industrial process heating is one of the major sources of CO[sub.2] in the industry. Electrification is a promising solution for decarbonizing these boilers, as it en...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEnergies (Basel) Vol. 17; no. 12; p. 2882
Main Authors Chowdhury, Nahian Ismail, Gopalakrishnan, Bhaskaran, Adhikari, Nishan, Li, Hailin, Liu, Zhichao
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.06.2024
Subjects
Boilers
decarbonization
Electricity
electrification
Emissions
Energy consumption
Energy efficiency
Energy minerals
energy transition
Evaluation
Fossil fuels
fossil-fuel boilers
Greenhouse gases
Heat
Industrial plant emissions
Monte Carlo Simulation
Natural gas
sustainability
United States > US
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Summary:Decarbonizing fossil-fuel usage is crucial in mitigating the impacts of climate change. The burning of fossil fuels in boilers during industrial process heating is one of the major sources of CO[sub.2] in the industry. Electrification is a promising solution for decarbonizing these boilers, as it enables renewable energy sources to generate electricity, which can then be used to power the electric boilers. This research develops a user-driven simulation model with realistic data and potential temperature data for a location to estimate boilers’ current energy and fuel usage and determine the equivalent electrical boiler capacity and energy usage. A simulation model is developed using the Visual Basic Application (VBA)[sup.®] and takes factors such as current boiler capacity, steam temperature and pressure, condensate, makeup water, blowdown, surface area, and flue gas information as input. Random numbers generate the hourly temperature variation for a year for discrete-event Monte Carlo Simulation. The simulation generates the hourly firing factor, energy usage, fuel usage, and CO[sub.2] emissions of boilers for a whole year, and the result compares fossil-fuel and electrical boilers. The simulated data are validated using real system data, and sensitivity analysis of the model is performed by varying the input data.
ISSN:1996-1073
1996-1073
DOI:10.3390/en17122882