RWE Power is building a new 2 x 1,100 MW lignite-fired power plant with optimized plant technology (BoA) at Neurath in North Rhine-Westphalia. According to current plans, commissioning of the new plant is due to take place in late 2009.

RWE Power turned to ThyssenKrupp Fördertechnik for the supply of the complete handling system to supply lignite to the steam generators. The order is worth a total of roughly 31 million euros and includes planning, design, supply, installation and commissioning of a coal handling and preparation plant, including buildings and structural steelwork.

The entire plant, with a maximum handling capacity of 3,200 tons per hour, is designed double (100 percent reserve) and can also be run in parallel operation if required.

Lignite from the surface mine is supplied by rail to three slot bunkers with a total volume of 48,000 tons. Six bunker discharging devices remove the coal and load the bunker conveyors. With a belt width of 2,200 millimeters these three conveyors are fitted with adjustable discharge heads allowing the material to be transferred optionally to one or both of two parallel belt conveyors for further transportation.

From the underground bunker area these belts pass through a conveyor channel and across a 69 meter long conveyor bridge up to the iron separator building. Here the conveyors are fitted with special metal detectors and overhead magnetic separators which remove all magnetic metals from the coal stream. The subsequent parallel coal conveyors in a 34 meter long conveyor bridge are equipped with further metal detector coils for all non-magnetic ferrous metal and transport the coal to the coal preparation building.

Here the lignite is crushed in two steps by a total of six RollSizers - one primary and two secondary RollSizers per coal strand - to a final size of less than 50 millimeters.

The coal is then transported via a third, 225 meter long conveyor bridge to the coal distribution system where it distributed to the two power generating units. A flexible system of 14 belt conveyors and eight shuttle conveyors, some of them reversible or fitted with adjustable discharge heads, distributes the fuel to the sixteen bins of the steam generators.