CFB Tech Has Potential for SA

Rainbow Millennium Power Company has partnered with other companies to tap into circulating fluidized bed (CFB) technology to generate power from waste coal. The company plans to establish a 270-MW CFB plant in South Africa’s Richards Bay that could be increased by another 270 MW in the future.

Rainbow Millennium Power Company director Hugo Stewart said that CFB was a clean-coal technology that was well known overseas. There were about 1,000 CFB plants worldwide, with about 70 GW of electricity being generated. With 40% of coal remaining in South Africa, this relatively new technology could benefit the country’s smelters; produce ash for use as a cement by-product, landfill material, and agricultural lining materials.

The plant, or project Umbani as it is called, would use half of its waste coal and fuel sources from Witbank and the KwaZulu-Natal area. The Umbani project is expected to begin in April 2009 and come online in July 2012.