NOx Dispatching in Plant Utility Systems Using Existing Tools

Abstract

Localized NOx reduction during Ozone Alerts is a problem of increasing importance to process industries in and around heavily industrialized areas. New regulations by local and federal agencies are being developed, and many utilities are beginning to offer special tariffs to replace loss of self generated power due to mandatory production curtailments. Industrial plant operators have to make instantaneous decisions regarding which tariff to choose, which boilers/ turbines to operate and at what rate, and worry about NOx emissions besides. Operating in such an environment is an increasingly difficult task. Economic dispatching of plant utility systems is commonly done by the gas and electric power companies and software tools for such dispatching already exist even at the industrial plant level. The purpose of this paper is to show that these existing tools can be easily adapted for NOx dispatching. This is illustrated with an hypothetical example.