Improving Thermal Power Plant Efficiency

Energy is the most important requirement for the growth and development of a nation since it is the basic necessity for every sector. The most common form of energy used is electricity. Electricity is the form of energy that is used both commercially and non-commercially. Thus, generation of electricity is the most significant requirement. Thermal electric power generation is one of the major methods for generation of electricity. But generation of electricity is it enough. It has to be done in the most effective and efficient manner. Owing to acute importance of electricity, it is important that it is done in the most efficient manner so that losses are minimized, outputs are maximized, optimum utilization of resources is done and reduction in the overall cost of the power plant can be achieved. Such outputs are even more important in the present era where sustainable development has become the most important requirement. The present research will analyze the factors affecting efficiency of a power plant. The study will further analyze the effect of operational practices & choice of fuel on efficiency of thermal power plant and the technologies available for improving the thermal power plant efficiency. The research will analyze the ways to optimize the thermal power plant through review based and theoretical analysis. The present research will be a review based work wherein an in depth analyses of the existing literature will be done. The conceptual model thus formed from the review will then be verified through qualitative analysis using thematic analysis method. The respondents (N=8) will be acclaimed professors and research associates in the field of thermal energy. Based on the findings from the review and qualitative analysis, conclusion will be drawn and discussion will be presented wherein all the research questions will be answered. Finally, the future prospective based on the present research will be presented.

Power Plant Optimisation—Effective Use of the Nelder-Mead Approach

This paper demonstrates the use of a combined software package including IPSEpro and MATLAB in the optimisation of a modern thermal cycle. A 900 MW power plant unit (operating at ultra-supercritical conditions) was considered as the study object. The Nelder-Mead simplex-based, direct search method was used to increase power plant efficiency and to find the optimal thermal cycle configuration. As the literature reveals, the Nelder-Mead approach is very sensitive to the simplex size and to the choice of method coefficients, i.e., reflection, expansion and contraction. When these coefficients are improperly chosen, the finding of the optimal solution cannot be guaranteed, particularly in such complex systems as thermal cycles. Hence, the main goal of the present work was to demonstrate the capability of an integrated software package including IPSEpro, MATLAB and MS Excel in the optimisation process of a complex thermal cycle, as well as to examine the effectiveness of the most popular sets of Nelder-Mead coefficients previously proposed by other researchers. For the investigation purposes, the bleed and outlet pressures from the turbines were considered as decision variables, and the power plant efficiency was used as an objective function.