Engineer Kim’s path to innovation
At the end of the 80s, when the green agenda had not yet taken hold of the masses and did not dominate the economy, a young energy engineer with Alexey Kim sat down to work on his thesis on the issues of proper, or more precisely, combined combustion of fuel. His graduation project was called “Conversion of the Almaty CHPP-1 to burning natural gas,” which he defended in 1990. Now few people know, but it was this work that later became the basis for a real project, which was implemented at the station.
Alexey began working at CHPP-1 back in 1982 as a mechanic repairing boiler equipment. At the same time he studied at the Almaty Energy Institute. His supervisor was Valery Dmitrievich Ogai, who suggested this topic to him.
As Alexey Andreevich himself, now the chief engineer of the Almaty CHPP-1, recalls, during the period of writing his thesis two important circumstances came together: firstly, practical work at the station allowed him to study the equipment and understand the basic design of the station, and secondly, during this period reconstruction of the gas control point of the station was carried out.
And although environmental issues were not yet so acute, power engineers were already concerned about the plant’s large emissions. In addition, CHPP-1 is located in the city center, so the requirements for it were already increased then. By the way, the combined option of burning fuel in the station’s boiler units – coal, fuel oil and seasonal excesses of natural gas from the Bukhar-Khiva fields – was provided for by the USSR State Planning Committee back in March 1965.
– CHPP-1 is one of the oldest stations in Kazakhstan. From 1935 to 1971, some of its boilers worked on Karaganda brown coal, and several on hard coal. Gas development began during its reconstruction in 1962-1972. The first test volume of natural gas was flared in February 1971. After a successful experiment, we ordered a project to convert the boilers to burn natural gas,” says the energy engineer. – And, starting from 1979, gas, which became a reserve fuel, was burned only in the summer. This topic also interested me: from 1981, when I came to the station, until 1990, I made a dozen rationalization proposals, and then defended my project.
In the 2000s, requirements for NOx (collective name for nitrogen oxides) emissions increased. At the station, as Alexey Andreevich recalls, in the meantime, the correct stationary fuel combustion modes were being worked out.
“The thermal power plant was fully ready to switch to gas already in the 90s,” says the engineer. “But there was no gas, so in the winter we worked on coal, in the summer on gas.
When there was combined combustion of coal and gas, coal was 5-6 times cheaper than natural gas in cost. And since we burn gas in the summer, the station showed a very good reduction in emissions of combustion products into the city’s atmosphere. The unique technological scheme of CHPP-1 allowed us to achieve the best specific indicators, according to which it became the best in Kazakhstan. Moreover, our station was among the top most economical stations in the CIS. But by gradually switching the station to gas, we also solved environmental problems.
In 2008-2009, when a new gas pipeline was launched, the thermal power plant began to receive gas from it. The percentage of coal combustion was gradually reduced. After 2010, the station began to increase gas combustion, and in 2017 it was decided to completely switch it to gas, making fuel oil the backup fuel.
“We burned the coal and mothballed the equipment. But as environmental requirements became more stringent, the station began to switch to European standards, continues Alexey Andreevich. – Therefore, in 1992, we installed an emulsifier with an ash collection coefficient of 99.2-99.4% on one of the boilers. But it was constantly clogged, it was necessary to clean it and take action. Many stations that supplied such emulsifiers then dismantled them because… they were very capricious to use. We continued to exploit and refine them. Since 2002, a new generation of emulsifiers has been introduced – first plastic, then titanium. They were much easier to operate, but they had a warranty period of only five years.
As a result, they were also abandoned at the station. But that’s what an engineer is all about: finding the best technical solutions. In 2005, he became the chief engineer of CHPP-1, and already in November of the following year they decided to install an experimental wooden emulsifier. What the engineers of CHPP-1, together with Alexey Andreevich, proposed at the 10th boiler of the station surprised many.
– We chose hard-grade larch because in such an environment it only gets stronger over the years. We bought the forest ourselves and made sketches. Everyone worked according to the drawing and assembled it in a month,” says the KIM engineer. – The size of the emulsifier is 2.5 by 4.5 meters, there are 45 cells in total. When we were working on the project, my furniture maker nephew advised us not to install solid wood, but to cut it into strips. That’s what we did – in strips of 9 cm, but in Karaganda we made it into timber, and it took off. We cut special grooves on a milling machine for assembly. After assembly, stainless steel swirlers were installed in the lower part. We gave birth to such a brainchild – it’s still working for 17 years! Over the years, only 30% of the boards have been replaced. Then this project cost us 1.3 million tenge, while the titanium project would have been estimated at 45 million tenge. Our emulsifier captures 99.4% of emissions. We also made flushing devices that allow it to be serviced without stopping the boiler. The wooden emulsifier works great, although it was made experimentally. And from 2006 to 2009, we switched all boilers to emulsifiers. CHPP-1 became the first station where all boilers worked with second-generation emulsifiers!
During his tenure – from 2011 to 2013 – the burner devices were reconstructed with the installation of additional blast channels to reduce NOx emissions into the city’s atmosphere.
“Everything in the burner devices remains the same, with the exception of the additional air supply,” explains the chief engineer of the station. – We additionally supplied tertiary air and side blast. They separated everything and changed the secondary air system. Our last improvement proposal was on energy saving. After we stopped working on coal and switched to gas, we made a proposal to reduce the dosage of hot air and water. On all projects we worked with specialists from specialized research institutes. Sometimes they argued – as usual when theorists and practitioners come together – but everything was thoroughly calculated and worked out in production. In my opinion, all the reconstructions were interesting. I think that if all Almaty thermal power plants are switched to gas, then we will be the most profitable. There are only doubts about gas supplies: in the early 90s, Almaty consumed 130 thousand cubic meters of gas per year, and now only for CHPP-1 and ZTK the same amount is needed per hour! I hope this issue will be resolved in the interests of production, and most importantly, the residents of the city.
As for CHPP-1, we recall that in accordance with the “Comprehensive Action Plan for Improving the Condition of Atmospheric Air in Almaty for 2016-2017”, from July 1, 2017, year-round operation of the station using natural gas combustion was established. Previously, an independent energy examination was carried out to change the type of its main and reserve fuel, according to which natural gas was determined as the main type of fuel, and fuel oil as the reserve.
Gas is easy to operate for both personnel and equipment. There is no dust, no pumping and abrasive wear of equipment. Currently, constant air measurements are being taken at the station. “And it’s cleaner here than on the street, like Seifullina,” they say at CHPP-1, not without pride. If we speak in official language, then, according to the conclusion of experts, the values of nitrogen oxide emissions have been brought to the standards of the Technical Regulations of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Alexey Andreevich is also given credit for his painstaking, systematic, long-term work in collecting statistical data from the station. He started it in the 90s, when he became the head of the boiler shop. He entered data on the park resource into a table that he himself developed. First in paper form, then in electronic form. He transferred from the archive to a table all the information on all equipment – boiler, turbine, steam pipelines – from the day of its commissioning. Next, the total operating time of the equipment is calculated using the formulas in the table. He finished the table when he was deputy chief engineer of the station. Now all production divisions of the company have been working for many years according to his author’s table “Operation time and fleet life of capital equipment.”
“The main equipment of the station and each node on which the operation of the equipment depends have a fleet resource,” Alexey Kim argues for the need for such analytics. -Now all the information is in one table. And, since 2008, we regularly inspect all equipment and enter everything into the table. This allows you to keep the entire resource under control, carry out major and current repairs and preventive maintenance in a timely manner. I have been working at the station for 41 years. And over these years, one might say, I have completed all the tasks of my thesis.
It is difficult for non-specialists to appreciate the full scale of this completed thesis work. But as noted in AlES JSC, a structural unit of which is CHPP-1, for 2007-2022, the station achieved a 69% reduction in emissions, from 10.5 thousand to 3.4 thousand tons, due to the implementation of environmental measures, such as: installation of new emulsifiers on all boiler units, with a purification degree of 99.2%, as well as the complete exclusion of sulfur and ash emissions from the composition, and the exclusion of ash and slag from the waste composition, which made it possible to significantly reduce the load on the atmosphere of Almaty.
In general, rationalization activities under the leadership of Alexey Kim brought significant economic and environmental benefits to the entire company. Over the past seven years alone, 58 rationalization proposals have been submitted to the station, of which 34 have been approved, 15 have already been implemented. The economic effect from the implemented proposals is 38.6 million tenge. In general, Alexey Kim’s creative engineering approach showed that innovation is rightfully considered an important economic category that allows reducing capital costs and achieving set goals.