Cement manufacturing plant and method of operating a cement manufacturing plant

A cement manufacturing plant comprising:

• a raw meal mill for grinding raw meal to obtain ground raw meal,
• at least one preheater string comprising cyclone suspension-type preheaters for preheating the ground raw meal in counter current flow to hot exhaust gas coming from a clinker furnace,
• optionally a pre-calciner for pre-calcining the preheated raw meal,
• a clinker furnace for calcining the preheated and optionally pre-calcined raw meal in counter current flow to combustion gas of a clinker furnace burner to obtain cement clinker,
• a clinker cooler for cooling the cement clinker, wherein the clinker cooler comprises a first section and a second section, the first section being adjacent a clinker discharge end of the clinker furnace and the second section being remote from the clinker discharge end of the clinker furnace,
• optionally cooler vent-air recirculation means for recirculating clinker cooler vent-air from the raw meal mill to the second section of the clinker cooler,
• optionally bypass gas recirculation means for recirculating bypass gas, which is taken from between an exhaust gas end of the clinker furnace and the at least one preheater string, to the first section of the clinker cooler,
• preheater exhaust gas recirculation means for recirculating exhaust gas leaving the at least one preheater string into the first section of the clinker cooler,
• the cement plant being configured for switching between an air operation mode and an oxyfuel operation mode and comprising:
• first switching means for connecting either a source of air or a source of oxygen rich gas to a burning zone of the clinker furnace burner, and
• second switching means for either establishing or separating a connection of the preheater exhaust gas recirculation means to the first section of the clinker cooler.