Babcock has entered into a strategic alliance agreement with US-based Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) to jointly market B&W’s thermal and environmental technologies in southern Africa.
Speaking at the company's Power Technology Day recently, Thava Govender, the CEO of Babcock’s engineering business, said that through this alliance, the company’s power and industrial customers have access to a wealth of proven international technologies that can be applied to address local challenges such as emission reduction, power reliability, and renewable energy.
Govender confirmed that some of these technologies have already been successfully implemented in South Africa: The company provided a nitrogen oxide (NOx) abatement solution for a large industrial petrochemical plant in association with B&W.
David Milner, B&W’s director for sales and business development in sub-Saharan Africa, said that through the alliance, Babcock can draw on a range of other B&W technologies to customise engineering solutions for any complex steam generation challenge.
Technologies were listed that could help customers achieve their environmental and optimisation objectives. These included:
- Ash handling
- Boiler cleaning
- Boiler controls and optimisation
- Bubbling fluidised bed boilers
- Chemical recovery boilers
- Circulating fluidised bed boilers
- Coal pulveriser systems
- Flue gas desulphurisation (both wet and dry)
- Industrial package boilers
- Waste to energy plants
Milner says that there is also a growing interest in South Africa in technologies such as carbon capture, oxy-fuel firing, and hydrogen production and utilisation. While still in their infancy locally, B&W has successfully implemented these technologies in other parts of the world and Babcock can help customers explore solutions for future challenges in association with B&W.
The event was held at the Birchwood Hotel and OR Tambo Conference Centre in Boksburg.
