One of the most important issues for modern domestic power industry is the creation and further widespread introduction of solid propellant energy units for super-critical steam parameters with high efficiency (43–46%) and improved environmental parameters. This will significantly reduce the use of natural gas.At the same time, one of the major drawbacks of the operation of pulverized coal power units is the need to use a significant amount of fuel oil during start-up and shutdown of boilers to stabilize the burning of the coal torch in the variable boiler operating modes.In this regard, solid fuel TPPs need to be provided with fuel oil facilities, with all the associated problems to ensure the performance (heating of fuel oil in winter), reliability and safety. All of the above problems increase both the TPP capital construction costs, and the electricity generating cost.A practical solution to the above problems at present is the use of a plasma technology for coal torch ignition based on thermochemical preparation of fuel for combustion. The materials of the developments of JSC “NPO CKTI” on application of plasmatrons in boilers of thermal power plants at metallurgical complexes of the Russian Federation are also considered.Plasma ignition systems for solid fuels in boilers were developed by Russian specialists and were introduced at a number of coal-fi red power plants in the Russian Federation, Mongolia, North Korea, and Kazakhstan. Plasma ignition of solid fuels is widely used in China for almost 30% of power boilers.The introduction of plasma-energy technologies will improve the energy efficiency of domestic solid-fuel thermal power plants and can be widely implemented in the modernization of boilers.During the construction of new TPPs, the construction of fuel oil facilities can be abandoned altogether, which will reduce the capital costs of the construction of thermal power plants, reduce the construction footprint, and increase the TPP safety.

To solve the problem of further improving the efficiency and reliability of solid fuel generation in the Russian Federation, it is necessary to solve a number of main problems: ensuring environmental safety, export-oriented nature of the coal industry, low reliability, efficiency, high emissions of NOx , SO2 and particulate matter of existing obsolete equipment. In modern conditions, these problems can be solved comprehensively with the use of relatively low-cost methods in the case of using highly reactive coals, which at the same time have an increased explosion hazard (coals of explosiveness groups 3 and 4). For this reason, currently a large number of coal-fired power plants (mainly in Siberia and the Urals) experience a global transition to the combustion of highly explosive Kuznetsk coal of grades D, G, GD. In the present work, analysis is undertaken of methods and technologies to ensure the explosion and fire safety of fuel preparation systems for combustion at thermal power plants during the transition to these types of fuels, since most of these thermal power plants were initially designed for explosion-proof types of coal (T, 1CC, AH). A number of additional recommendations are developed to the current "rules of explosion safety", taking into account the specifics of technological schemes and the operation of a large number of these thermal power plants, a number of design solutions for equipment that improve the explosion safety of their dust treatment plants. For systems of preparation of finely crushed fuel (5–15 mm), boilers with circulating fluidized bed that are promising for the Russian power industry, and the use of drying installations at thermal power plants to ensure crushing of ordinary high-humidity fuels entering thermal power plants, a number of measures have been proposed that increase the fire safety of such installations.