History lines: Alexey Andreyevich Kim, a retiree, has completed his work as the chief engineer of CHPP-1
When I came to the city energy system in May 1982, it was called “Almaty Energo”. I started working at Alma-Ata CHPP-1 as a repairman of boiler equipment. While working, I studied six years in absentia at the Almaty Power Engineering Institute as a power engineer, having graduated in 1990, I became deputy head of the boiler shop in the same year.
When I came to Almaty CHPP-1 it was the only station in the city that produced both electricity and heat. There were 7 power boilers, one – CKTI-75, 6 boilers BKZ-160/100 and 7 hot-water boilers PTVM-100.
During that period the station was working at full load until the new CHPP-2 that was very difficult to integrate into the system, was launched in 1980. The station was new, the equipment was new, but its adaptation was very difficult and it took until 1985 to complete. In many aspects, it was complicated by the fact that CHPP-2 is located 12 meters below zero. And this has its own difficulties, its own nuances. For example, waste utilization takes place at a depth. And there was a great shortage of specialists. But the working conditions were better, more modern, so specialists from all over the Union were gradually recruited here. Some of them were transferred from our station.
At that time, CHPP-1 was a coal-operated station, plus fuel oil as a reserve fuel. For example, hot-water boilers worked on fuel oil. Nowadays the station is fully gas-fired. But in the early 80’s our CHPP could also work on gas, gas pipelines were already built. But – the volume of gas was very low. That is why we managed to combine fuel only closer to the 90s. Later, when sufficient volumes of gas became available, the modernization of CHPP-1 – in terms of switching to gas – has continued.
In the 80s-90s, the private sector was heated with gas, but even then an idea to switch CHPP-1 to operate on excess gas during the summer period was being worked out. However, these volumes of gas were small – 40 thousand m/3 per hour. And the station required 160 thousand m/3. per hour to produce the available capacity. Therefore, the gas distribution station (GDS) was built for the installed capacity of the station consumption volume – it was around 180 thousand m/3.
Initially, the idea of conversion to gas was considered only to replace coal with gas in the summer period. It was reasonable and allowed to reduce gas pollution – the environmental issues were already being raised at that time. In 1989-90 we were ready to switch to gas combustion at the gas distribution station. In 1990 we did the first reconstruction of CHPP-1, but the required volume of gas was not provided at that time.
Only when a high-pressure gas pipeline was built in the 2000s, it became possible to increase gas consumption at CHPP-1. We brought the station to 100% gas utilization only in 2018, when the left-over coal was completely burned. Now, if there is not enough gas supply during the winter cold season, the station can use fuel oil on hot water boilers as a backup fuel.
The main reason for switching to gas was that CHPP-1 was located in the central part of Almaty, and there has always been a problem of air pollution. Ecologists had a full control over us, and we knew that we had to do our best to reduce harmful emissions. The requirements for CHPP-1 were especially high, because the emissions were visible to the whole city at once, and we all breathed them. But there was no possibility to solve these problems at once due to a variety of reasons.
However, we worked out all these issues step by step, using the technologies and equipment available at that time. We were constantly looking for opportunities to reduce harmful emissions. Thus, as early as in 1992, new ash collecting units were installed at the station. The reduction of emissions into the atmosphere amounted to about 3-3.5% after installation.
At first the reconstruction was carried out by transferring one boiler to emulsifiers, a year later another boiler was also transferred. At that time it was a good and widespread idea. Thus, in Karaganda, these units were implemented at three stations step by step. In the years of Perestroika the first emulsifying cassettes were manufactured in Yekaterinburg.
The cassettes on the 1st generation emulsifiers were of fine calibration – about 640 tubes, which had to be constantly maintained to prevent them from clogging. On the 2nd generation emulsifiers, there was one total cassette weighing about a ton and containing only 45 tubes. Maintenance became easier, with the same performance.
The emulsifiers used at CHPP-1 are Panarin’s improved brainchild. If to speak simplistically, it is an installation that forms “rain smog” on the emulsifying cassette due to swirling of the flue gas flow from below and irrigation from above. Here is where the water layer is separated: heavy particles are enlarged and the sediment is washed away by the water along the walls of the emulsifier, while the purified gases pass upwards. The principle is very good…
However, further operational experience showed that emulsifiers are very difficult to maintain. For example, emulsifiers could not take root at CHPP-3 and had been dismantled. Subsequently, they were also dismantled at CHPP-2 and in Karaganda.
The main problem is their cleaning. At the initial stage of operation they were well cleaned. But then ash clogged inside, got embedded and we had to shut down the boiler. And shutting down the boiler in winter, for example, at CHPP-2, which was three times bigger than CHPP-1, was complicated.
Since the emulsifiers were kept at CHPP-1 for a long time, we had to constantly improve their design: we reconstructed the inlet and outlet parts of the ash collecting unit to prevent ash deposition. We flushed it on the move, and shut down the unit only at night for a couple of hours, when the peak load was decreased. So in Kazakhstan we were the only ones who worked with the old emulsifiers, they continued to serve us thanks to constant modernization and maintenance, and only by 2006 they were replaced.
It so happened that after the arrival of the Belgians and the formation of AIC, emulsifiers were eliminated at CHPP-2 and CHPP-3, and remained only at CHPP-1. In 2002, new generation emulsifier cassettes made of titanium were installed on two boilers. In November 2006 there was an emergency destruction of the titanium emulsifier at boiler 10. Therefore, it was decided to manufacture it from wood. By 2008, the station had completely switched over to new generation emulsifier units. Our wooden emulsifier failed in 2023. When we made the wooden emulsifier, at that time everyone said that it would fall apart in no time. But it lasted a long time, and ironically, it broke as soon as I retired.
Therefore, in 2023, my young colleagues, using the surviving drawings, finalized the idea of the emulsifier. They re-manufactured and put up a wooden cassette. It is reasonable: they bought lumber for about 1 million tenge, recycled it, made a cassette and installed it. If the titanium cassette in 2006 cost 45 million tenge, then it cost us only 2.5 million tenge to completely reconstruct it with a wooden part. Due to stricter requirements of the Ministry of Ecology, since 2006 at CHPP-2 and CHPP-3 there have been reconstructions of ash collecting units of new generation.
Up until 2010, CHPP-1 operated all year round, in summer period it operated in sparing mode, generating 25-30% of the station’s capacity. The reason for this was that there used to be year-round consumers of not only heat, but also of steam: Kirov Plant, “Gidromash”, AZTM, asphalt plants, confectionery factory, “Arasan”…
But at the end of the 90s 95% of enterprises had shut down, and we had no steam consumers as such in the summer period. Therefore, in summer, due to the absence of heat consumers, we had to shut down. The second reason for shutdowns was that the equipment was worn out and needed to be repaired. The main operating equipment of the station is produced in the 60-70s, and its service life is 30 years. And although the equipment has not been changed since then, many of its components have been constantly updated. And when I worked at the station, I also had a lot of suggestions.
Working in production, you always find something that can be improved. I was involved in many things during my years of work: I participated in the reconstruction of pipelines of pumping equipment, made suggestions to make the labor cheaper or safer. There were also difficult situations when I had to make some new technical decisions on the fly. For example, like the emergency shutdown of the entire city power system in 1986 on the day of the congress of the company of Kazakhstan. Probably all Almaty power engineers remember that day.
As soon as the entire system was shut down, we were immediately visited by a delegation of city authorities, district executive committee, “Almaty Energo”… At that time the chief engineer was Byrlyk Esirkepovich Orazbayev, who took the responsibility and courage to send them all away so that they would not interfere with the restoration process. This allowed us to restore the electricity to the grid as quickly as possible.
Such cases as a complete shutdown of the station are fraught with flooding of the bagger room, as water starts flowing here from all channels at once. I had to work in the brigade that was engaged in elimination of this problem. In particular, after the “lockdown” on the day of the congress, we strengthened the dredging room: we made an additional partition, put formwork, extended pits, and built up the sides. And considering the fact that the water spilled over the street in cases of overflow, I proposed to make a special drainage pump and put an automatic clapper. The clapper is designed to be permanently closed, and when the water comes, it is automatically triggered to open-close position.
The issue of a new ash dump and recycling water supply was also solved the same years. All wastes like ash, slag, which are being burned, are flushed through the channels to the baghouse pumping room. And from there special armored pumps pump it to the ash dump. At that time the old ash dump was located 7 km away from the station, and we launched a new one in 1986 in the vicinity of the settlement “Zarya Vostoka”. There was made a large tank, it is designed for one and a half months of water settling. The water stands there, and the purified water is returned back to the station.
In 2012, we built our own water intake to compensate for water evaporation at boilers and water level at ash dumps. Return water is much cheaper than tap water. The permitted water intake for the station was about 46 tons/hour. It was enough to compensate evaporation in summer. Over the winter we dialed it up, and in the summer we continue to pump it in there and stand still. Since 2018, everything has been pumped out there. There is almost no coal now, basically no waste, and practically clean water is pumped out there and even cleaner water is taken back in.
In the early 90s, we also started work on gas flaring, tertiary blowing. At that time we started to burn about 60-70% of the total fuel output. In 2012, we started reconstruction of burners. The project was drawn up for us, but there were mistakes in it. We had to finalize it ourselves so that after the reconstruction the burners would work more efficiently and cleanly.
Earlier, when the burners were made, they did not pay attention to nitrogen oxide emissions. Only in the 90s we were concerned about this problem, when with the transition to Euro-4 the requirements became higher. And since 2010 we have been closely engaged in stage-by-stage reduction of NOx level. Such combustion allows us to reduce NOx emissions. But for this purpose, the air supply channel had to be provided in such a way that at the initial stage it would give minimum air for combustion and then add more air to burn off the unburned particles. We had to find a golden mean, so that we could reduce CO emissions and keep NOx. We have succeeded.
Back in the day, we made a lot of work-related proposals. But usually not many people patented them at that time. There was even a case when after the reconstruction a person who had patented it, a year after we did, came to visit us. He claimed authorship. We then proved that we had done it earlier than he did, showed a working system. That is why it is very good that now the head office systematizes and keeps track of all the suggestions.
Now, CHPP-1 is undergoing a reconstruction. The project designers estimated it at 375 billion tenge. It is expensive. But only replacement of one power boiler will cost up to 10 billion tenge along with reconstruction. Maybe a new station in a new place will be cheaper, but the grids that will pull are going to be “golden” ones. Therefore, if the reconstruction is planned up until 2030, it is necessary to replace the boilers now.
All my professional experience is connected with CHPP-1. And looking back, assessing the development of the station, I can say that now it has become much easier to work there. Although the shops still have the same old equipment, but there is no more dust that there used to be. I must pay tribute to Byrlyk Yesirkepovich Orazbayev: when he was the chief engineer of CHPP-1, he did such a great deal for its development. He was very experienced and had the best qualities of a power engineer: professionalism, responsibility, and he also cared for the common goal. I often met with him. I brought him my development proposals more than once. He always looked into everything, adjusted something, evaluated everything by himself and made decisions.
…Today I am a pensioner, but my successors are working in each shop – in boiler and turbine shops. They are growing professionally, becoming managers, gaining experience. They are still learning something from me, and I am learning something from them. After all, despite my retirement, the power industry won’t let me go…