Thermal and Economic Considerations for Optimizing HRSG Design
The design, operation and usage of Heat Recovery Steam Generators (HRSG) has undergone considerable changes in the last 30 years. Nowadays, instead of as an option item, HRSGs are a major part of the Combined Cycle Power Plant. This makes it necessary to optimize the design and operation of the HRSG so that it can be integrated with the total plant. However, because of the complexity, it is not always feasible to evaluate all possible configurations for selecting the most optimum one within the given time constraints. An attempt is made here to present the parametric effect of various variables through descriptive graphs. These graphs are developed for general cases but can be applied to specific cases to give the trend rather than the absolute values. Cycle designers can use those to narrow down the cycle HRSG configurations. Plant operators may be able to use these to improve the performance by simple additions or modifications.