Super critical coal fired power plants with efficiencies of 45% have much much lower emissions than sub critical plants for a given power output. Early experience with super critical plants in the US indicated that they had poor availability i.e. forced outages were greater than with sub critical plants. However later experience that takes account of plant performance in China and South Africa and other countries shows that these plants are just a reliable as sub critical plants. Differences between sub critical and super critical power plants are limited to a relatively small number of components; primarily the feedwater pumps and the high-pressure feedwater train equipment. All the remaining components that are common to sub critical and super critical coal-fired power plants can be manufactured in developing countries.

The paper, "Super Critical Coal Fired Power Plants; A technology Being successfully Deployed in Developing Countries" reviews the major technical and performance aspects of a coal fired plant using this technology.

The paper has been prepared under the aegis of a Siemens/World Bank partnership program.

Performance data, feedwater and steam quality criteria data. The data has been prepared by staff at BABCOCK BORSIG POWER.