Glossary

Multi-energy boilerhouse

• Alternative fuels – all fuels other than conventional fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas). These can be, for example, biofuels or waste fuels. Their advantage is, m.in, lower CO₂ emissions and independence from limited fossil resources.
• Biogas – gas produced in the process of fermentation of organic waste (e.g. in biogas plants, landfills, sewage treatment plants, agricultural biogas plants). The main components are methane and carbon dioxide. It can be burned in boilers or other power equipment (e.g. gas engine) to generate electricity and/or heat. After purification, it turns into biomethane.
• Biomass – any organic material that can be burned and used to produce energy. These can be wood, wood chips, sawdust, straw, plant residues or even food waste. Biomass combustion is considered climate-neutral because the CO₂ released during combustion was previously taken up by plants in the process of photosynthesis.
• Biomethane – biogas that has been purified from carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. It then has the quality of natural gas (over 95% methane) and can be used as its substitute – e.g. to power power equipment or injected into the gas network.
• Biooil – a liquid fuel made from biomass, e.g. vegetable oil or biodiesel. It can be burned in boilers instead of traditional fuel oil, reducing CO₂ emissions.
• Boiler room service – a set of operational activities including periodic service activities, such as: cleaning boilers and exchangers, checking fuel feeders, flue gas filtration systems and automation.
• Booster – in a multienergy boilerhouse means a set of electric heaters built into the boiler. Thanks to them, the device can operate stably at minimum load (from 0% to 20% of nominal power) and support the boiler above 100% of nominal power (up to 120%). This solution increases the flexibility of the entire system and guarantees continuity of heat supply regardless of the load.
• CO₂ neutrality – the principle that the amount of CO₂ produced when biofuels are burned is offset by the amount of CO₂ previously taken up by plants during growth. Therefore, burning biomass does not increase global carbon emissions if done sustainably.
• Cogeneration (CHP) – combined heat and power. In a multi-power boiler room , this means that the steam generated in the boiler first goes to an expander  powering a generator, which converts some of the energy into electricity. Then, the steam from the expander – already with a lower pressure – is directed to the heating system or technological processes. Thanks to such a process, as a result of fuel combustion, heat and electricity are obtained at the same time, which causes the efficiency of the entire system to increase.
• Compressed air – a technical medium used in the boiler room to control valves and pneumatic actuators, cleaning bag filters. It must be cleaned and dried, which is why compressors with dryers and buffer tanks are used.
• Decarbonization – the process of reducing or completely eliminating carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from economic activities, mainly by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources. In the case of boiler rooms, this means replacing coal, gas or fuel oil with biomass, biogas, biomethane, biooil or electricity produced from RES. Decarbonisation reduces the company’s carbon footprint and helps meet EU climate requirements and sustainability goals.
• Diversification – the ability to use different fuels in one boiler room. Thanks to this, the plant does not depend on one energy source and can choose the one that is the cheapest or most environmentally friendly at a given time.
• Dust burner – a special burner designed for burning biomass shredded into dust (e.g. ground wood pellets). Biomass dust must have a sufficiently small fraction, usually less than 1 mm, for combustion to be stable and complete and complete. Too large particles do not burn completely and cause a decrease in efficiency and the risk of contamination of the boiler. The dust burner is equipped with a system for feeding and mixing dust with air, as well as flame backlash protection.
• Dust-oil-gas burner – a special burner that allows to burn solid fuels in the form of dust, liquid fuels and gaseous fuels in the same boiler. This allows the boiler to quickly change fuel depending on price and availability, without the need for modifications to the system.
• Electric heaters – elements built into the boiler that heat water or steam with electricity. They enable the boiler room to operate at very low loads, and also support at peak times when more heat is needed. They can use cheap electricity generated from RES.
• ETS emission fees – costs related to carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere under the European Emissions Trading System. They concern fossil fuel-fired boiler rooms. In the case of multi-power boiler rooms burning biomass, biogas or biofuel, there are no such fees, which reduces operating costs.
• Flame tube boiler – the basic type of boiler in multi-power boiler rooms. It has a large water capacity. It is made of a flame tube (a large-diameter tube), which is also a combustion chamber in which the burner is placed (in larger units there may be two flame tubes). The flame tube is the first line of the boiler. Subsequent lines of the boiler are made of tubes of smaller diameter – flame tubes, through which hot flue gases flow. Flame so, as well as flame tubes, are washed with water from the outside. This allows it to transfer heat well to the water and ensures stable operation even with sudden load changes.
• Flue gas recirculation – consists in returning part of the flue gas from the flue gas outlet system to the furnace. As a result, the flame has a lower temperature and less contaminants are formed in the exhaust gas. This method is primarily used to reduce emissions of harmful nitrogen oxides (NOx).
• Hammer mill – a device for grinding pellets or wood chips into fine dust (grains with a size of less than 1 mm). Such dust can be effectively burned in a dust burner. Hammer mills are simple to build, durable and adapted to biomass shredding. They are most often installed in technological buildings.
• Modulated operation – the ability of the boiler to continuously increase and decrease the power depending on demand. This allows the boiler room to operate stably both under low load and at peaks in demand for thermal energy (steam or water).
• NOx – is the sum of nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), which are formed during combustion at high temperatures. They are harmful to health and the environment (smog, acid rain), which is why boiler rooms must have systems to limit their emission into the environment.
• Pellet – solid fuel in the form of small cylindrical granules (with a diameter of a few/several millimeters) from biomass (e.g. compressed sawdust). It has a high calorific value of 16.5-18.5 MJ/kg, low humidity and leaves very little ash. Pellets are convenient for automatic boilers because they can be easily dosed and burned with low emissions.
• Process steam – water vapor used directly in industrial processes (e.g. for heating, drying, sterilization). Its parameters (pressure, temperature) are selected to the needs of production.
• Redundancy – duplication of important elements of the system (e.g. pumps, boilers) so that the installation works even in the event of a failure of one of them. Thanks to this, the risk of interruption in the heat supply is minimal.
• RES – are Renewable (non-fossil) Energy Sources including wind energy, solar radiation energy, geothermal energy, wave, current and tidal energy, energy obtained from biomass, biogas, agricultural biogas and bioliquids.
• Ruths’ tank – a steam accumulator. It is a tank that acts as a buffer. When there is an excess of steam, it is collected in the tank, and when the demand increases, the steam is taken from it and fed into the system. This allows the boiler to work more stably and the system does not lose pressure at critical moments. The use of the Ruths tank contributes to increasing the effectiveness of the entire steam system.
• SCADA/DCS – automation and supervision systems for industrial installations. In multi-power boiler rooms , they allow for remote viewing of operating parameters, boiler control and integration with the plant’s production system.
• Turnkey implementation – a method of delivery of investments, in which the supplier is responsible for the entire process: design, delivery of equipment, installation, commissioning and training of operators. The investor receives a complete boiler room, ready to be connected to the company networks.
• Water treatment plant – a set of devices for purifying the water supplying the boiler (softening, deferring, degassing, filtration). This prevents limescale and corrosion in the boiler, as well as improves the quality of the process steam.

Waste gases

• BAT (Best Available Techniques) – translated from English, these are the Best Available Techniques. BAT is a European Union standard that defines optimal technologies to reduce emissions and improve energy efficiency. ICS installations meet the fully restrictive BAT requirements for industrial burners and boilers.
• BMS (Burner Management System) – burner protection and automation system. It controls the entire sequence of operation of the industrial burner, from start-up, through operation (fuel-to-air ratio management and monitoring) to shutdown, ensuring safety during the operation of the burners and boiler.
• Boiler efficiency – is the ratio of thermal energy transferred to the circulating medium (usually water or steam, less often glycol or thermal oil) to the chemical energy contained in the fuel, calculated based on the calorific value of the fuel.
• CO (carbon monoxide) – a toxic gas produced during incomplete combustion. It is an odorless and colorless gas, commonly called carbon monoxide or “silent killer”. Low CO emissions mean that the combustion process is carried out correctly and efficiently.
• Co-combustion – a process in which two fuels are burned simultaneously in the same chamber. In ICS installations, this means, for example, the combustion of waste gas with a small addition of natural gas.
• Ecotube® – technology for reducing nitrogen oxides and CO by optimizing the combustion process and using the SNCR method.
• HiTAC (High Temperature Air Combustion) – combustion of fuel in air heated to high temperature. Thanks to the homogeneous mixture of fuel, air and internally recirculating exhaust gases in (almost) the entire volume of the combustion chamber, it is possible to achieve an even distribution of heat and temperature throughout the chamber. As a result of such organization of the process, the so-called volumetric combustion is created, without a “sharp” flame. This reduces NOx and CO emissions.
• HRS (High-cycle Regenerative System) – a regeneration system that cyclically heats the air supplied to the combustion process by means of hot exhaust gases. The air heating process is usually carried out with ceramic regenerators. It is mainly used in metallurgy and high-temperature furnaces.
• HTB (High Temperature Burner) burner – an industrial burner used in HiTAC technology. It has the characteristics of uniform heat distribution, high durability and low pollution emission.
• HTB-WG burner – a special version of the HTB burner adapted to the combustion of waste gases (Waste Gas). It is a dual-fuel burner that uses low-calorific waste gases as the primary fuel and natural gas as the auxiliary/reserve fuel.
• IED (Industrial Emissions Directive) – The European Union’s directive regulating industrial emissions. It determines, m.in, the maximum permissible levels of NOx, SO₂ and dust for power boilers.
• LHV – Low Heating Value. For gaseous fuels, it is expressed in kJ/Nm³, MJ/Nm3, and for solid and liquid fuels in kJ/kg, MJ/kg.
• NOx (nitrogen oxides) – a group of pollutants consisting of nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and nitrous oxide (N2O) formed in the combustion process (i. Their formation is facilitated by high temperatures of the combustion process and the content of substances containing nitrogen bound in the molecule. Thanks to HiTAC technology, NOx emissions  in ICS installations are very low.
• Reburning – the primary method of reducing nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions used in industrial boilers. It consists in creating an additional (second) combustion zone behind the main burner in the oxygen-poor zone (reduction zone). Additional fuel (e.g. natural gas, waste gas) is injected into the hot exhaust gases above the burner, which reacts with NOx, reducing it to molecular nitrogen (N₂). Then, in the next (third) zone, additional air is introduced to burn the fuel residues and reduce the CO.
• SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) – (Selective Catalytic Reduction) method of NOx reduction that involves the reaction of NOx with ammonia or urea on a catalyst to produce mainly nitrogen and water. It is a more advanced technology than SNCR, but more expensive (due to the need to replace the catalytic bed), which means that it is less often used in the case of waste gas combustion.
• Semi-adiabatic chamber – a combustion chamber with high thermal insulation efficiency (low heat loss to the environment), in which the flue gases are not immediately cooled by the boiler surfaces. It allows you to maintain the high temperature needed to burn low-calorie gases.
• SNCR (Selective Non-Catalytic Reduction) – NOx reduction technology involving the injection of ammonia/ammonia water or urea into the flue gas at a high temperature (usually in the range of 850-1050°C). It can be an add-on to ICS systems if particularly stringent emission standards are imposed.
• Throat gas – waste gas, is a by-product of copper production in shaft furnaces as a result of the processing of copper ores. It has a very low calorific value (approx. 1.5-2.5 MJ/Nm³) and a high content of impurities in this dust. Due to the purification technologies used, it has a significant moisture content. It is difficult to burn it on its own, but with the use of ICS volumetric combustion technology, it is possible without the constant addition of natural gas (usually auxiliary fuel in the form of natural gas is needed during start-up/failures).