Formulation, application and evaluation of a stack emission model for coal-based power stations

Estimation of coal power plant emissions is a vital step to visualise emission trends with respect to specific policy implementations and technological interventions so that their effectiveness in terms of emission reductions and ambient air quality improvement can be quantitatively assessed. However, research work concerning stack emission estimations specifically for coal power plants in India is limited. To bridge the present gap, we present a plant-specific multi-year and multi-parameter Coal Power Stack Emission Model. This model has been developed to explore current and historical annual stack emissions from a coal-based thermal power plant taking into account essential variables such as coal characteristics, process attributes and control equipment aspects, which can significantly influence the stack emissions. This study concentrates on development of Coal Power Stack Emission model and its application for the estimation of plant and year-specific emission factors and stack emissions for a coal-based power plant at Badarpur, New Delhi, for the period of 2000–2008. The validation of Coal Power Stack Emission model has also been successfully carried out by comparing the trends of percentage change in annual emission estimates and observed ambient air concentrations of total suspended particles, PM₁₀ and sulphur dioxide at two nearby air quality monitoring stations, namely Siri Fort and Nizamuddin.