Pollutant control technologies play a vital role in promoting a healthy and green environment. While competing technologies such as fuel cells and other green technologies have the potential for future growth, these options are yet to meet the reliability and efficiency standards that conventional technologies conform to. On its part, the power generation industry – as driven by air pollution requirements – is keenly pursuing strategies to mitigate the emissions of sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, particulate matter and other pollutants from power plants.

Regulatory agencies across different countries have been continuously monitoring emissions from power plants through various compliance norms and regulatory measures. These steps have played a crucial role in curtailing emissions, thus significantly leading to a variety of environmental benefits. With several countries experiencing economic growth and a corresponding rise in demand for electricity, power plants are becoming crucial and remain a source for pollutants such as NOx, SOx, mercury, green house emissions, and other PMs. Because of this, regulatory bodies are making pollution control norms tougher with each passing year.

“In addition to the increasing need for controlling emission of pollutants to avoid environmental and health hazards, drivers such as regulatory norms proposed by environmental organizations as well as rising demand for electricity and emissions trading in the European Union (EU) are contributing to the development of pollutant control technologies,” notes Technical Insights Industry Analyst Viswanathan Krishnan. “Power plant owners prefer to opt for multipollutant control technologies over single pollutant control ones in order to gain cost competitiveness.”

Several emerging multipollutant control technologies such as the electro-catalytic oxidation (ECO) process, low-temperature oxidation (LOTOx), Enviroscrub process, airborne process and advanced dry flue gas desulphurization technologies are set to play a crucial role in controlling multipollutants. Recently, regulators have been monitoring mercury emissions in the United States through the ‘Mercury Rule’. This has boosted the research and development of various technologies such as sorbent-based injection technologies, amended silicate-based technology, and patented precombustion process for coal fired plants and the emerging virtual sorbent bed technology.

However, developers of pollutant control technologies need to consider issues such as uncertainty over fuel costs, nature of legislation, and specific aspects of individual projects. Rising oil prices are the biggest concern for power plant owners as they have a direct impact on the cost of electricity as well as on gas prices, which have increased correspondingly. Although market participants perceive gas as a viable and long-term fuel, many power plant owners are evaluating the option of coal-based electricity generation because of unpredictable oil and gas prices. A limited natural gas supply is also a concern for the power generation industry.

“Further, although various power plants have common features they are built for individual projects at different times with dissimilar specifications,” notes Krishnan. ”This necessitates a careful assessment of the pollution control equipment or technology while meeting the emission norms decided by regulatory agencies.”

Overall, the growth in competing technologies such as wind, photovoltaics, fuel cells, thermal, biomass, small hydro and geothermal solutions can also influence the development of pollutant control technologies, eventually facilitating the adoption of ‘green’ technologies in the future. Nevertheless, existing power plant owners must comply with emission standards as sought by regulatory bodies by adopting suitable pollutant control technologies to survive.