Tools
What your fuel costs, and what it could cost
Seven modules, and the answer in money per year. Take your boiler, thermic fluid heater or hot air generator through your fuel, your firing and the point it actually runs at, and this estimator returns the cost of steam or heat today, the saving against a UDBT design, the ten-year picture and the carbon that goes with it.
Engineering comparison notice: every figure here is a thermodynamic estimate calibrated against measured heat balances. What you actually save depends on your fuel ultimate analysis, your load profile, your shifts and site ambient conditions. Carbon prices and rules are indicative and move every year.
Thermodynamic method
How the calculations are structured
- Heat duty 01
- A boiler takes Q = steam flow x (steam enthalpy at your operating pressure and temperature - feedwater enthalpy), read off IAPWS-IF97 tables. A thermic fluid heater or hot air generator takes the duty you enter, and the fluid or air flow follows from Q / (specific heat x temperature rise).
- Fuel fired 02
- Firing rate = duty / (efficiency x gross calorific value). On a blend the calorific value, net calorific value, landing price and CO2 factor are all weighted by mass share. Net calorific value is GCV less 584 x (9H + M) / 100 for the water leaving the stack.
- Where you are now 03
- Give either your measured fuel consumption, which the tool turns into an efficiency, or the efficiency you believe you are running at, which it turns into a fuel consumption. Until you type a consumption the field carries a suggestion worked at 75%.
- What can burn together 04
- Only fuels that can share the same furnace are offered as a blend, and the firing types on offer are limited to those that suit the fuel in the fire. Pet coke, bagasse, blast furnace gas and LPG are fired on their own.
- Carbon 05
- CO2 is the fuel fired times its emission factor, following IPCC 2006 Guidelines Vol. 2 Table 1.4; biomass carries zero because biogenic CO2 is reported separately under the GHG Protocol. Credit value is the avoided CO2 at the carbon price for your region, climbing at that region's assumed rate over 10 years, with the EU border adjustment taken at 75.36 euro a tonne on half your output.
- Currency and units 06
- Changing the currency changes the symbol and the number format, so enter every price in the currency you have selected. Indicative landing prices are only offered in rupees. Fuel prices are held flat across the ten years; the carbon price is the only figure that escalates.
Want the firm number?
Send us your fuel analysis and operating point
We will work the comparison against a measured heat balance for your exact plant parameters and quote a delivered price.