Design of Fast and Reliable Steam Surface Condensers

Author(s):  
Ranga Nadig

Abstract Power plants operating in cyclic mode, standby mode or as back up to solar and wind generating assets are required to come on line on short notice. Simple cycle power plants employing gas turbines are being designed to come on line within 10–15 minutes. Combined cycle plants with heat recovery steam generators and steam turbines take longer to come on line. The components of a combined cycle plant, such as the HRSG, steam turbine, steam surface condenser, cooling tower, circulating water pumps and condensate pumps, are being designed to operate in unison and come on line expeditiously. Major components, such as the HRSG, steam turbine and associated steam piping, dictate how fast the combined cycle plant can come on line. The temperature ramp rates are the prime drivers that govern the startup time. Steam surface condenser and associated auxiliaries impact the startup time to a lesser extent. This paper discusses the design features that could be included in the steam surface condenser and associated auxiliaries to permit quick startup and reliable operation. Additional design features that could be implemented to withstand the demanding needs of cyclic operation are highlighted.

Author(s):  
Rolf H. Kehlhofer

In the past 15 years the combined-cycle (gas/steam turbine) power plant has come into its own in the power generation market. Today, approximately 30 000 MW of power are already installed or being built as combined-cycle units. Combined-cycle plants are therefore a proven technology, showing not only impressive thermal efficiency ratings of up to 50 percent in theory, but also proving them in practice and everyday operation (1) (2). Combined-cycle installations can be used for many purposes. They range from power plants for power generation only, to cogeneration plants for district heating or combined cycles with maximum additional firing (3). The main obstacle to further expansion of the combined cycle principle is its lack of fuel flexibility. To this day, gas turbines are still limited to gaseous or liquid fuels. This paper shows a viable way to add a cheap solid fuel, coal, to the list. The plant system in question is a 2 × 150 MW combined-cycle plant of BBC Brown Boveri with integrated coal gasification plant of British Gas/Lurgi. The main point of interest is that all the individual components of the power plant described in this paper have proven their worth commercially. It is therefore not a pilot plant but a viable commercial proposition.


Author(s):  
Pascal Fontaine

The US market is currently making a double jump in its HRSG requirements. Heretofore, HRSGs were used largely in industrial size cogen applications. According to the PURPA (Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act), public utilities were required to purchase that electric power generated in excess of the steam host’s needs. Thus, HRSGs were relatively small and operated under constant conditions. Now, HRSGs are much larger (utility size) and also more complex due to the introduction of triple pressure plus reheat behind powerful heavy duty gas turbines. With the onset of deregulation and consequent merchant power, combined cycle plants are now required to supply electrical power to the grid as and when needed with consequent day/night and weekday/weekend cycling. Those merchant plants have to come on and off line with minimal notice and be run sometimes at partial loads. Even units which were originally designed for base load are all eventually forced to cycle as new more efficient power plants are built. Thus, substantial changes in basic HRSG design are needed to cope with these changes. Coincidentally, the types of service projected for USA HRSGs have been in effect in Europe for over two decades. For this reason, European HRSG manufacturers/operators have adopted cycling tolerant Vertical HRSGs based on designs which permit the tubes to expand/contract freely and independently of one another, as distinguished from the more rigid horizontal gas pass design. Thus, fatigue stresses related to load following swings are minimized. This is just an illustration of the specific features of the Vertical European HRSGs for minimizing damages due to cycling related fatigue stresses. Vertical HRSG design shall be considered not only in terms of smaller footprint, but also as a solution to cycling related problems. As generally recognized, the cycling criterion is an integral part of HRSG design. This paper presents solutions to HRSG design issues for cycling tolerant operation. It relates to published data on problems observed with cycling Horizontal HRSGs, and it describes how these problems can be overcome. Concepts, design features and calculation methods applied to cycling tolerant HRSGs are reviewed in detail. Vertical HRSGs have been criticized because of their need for circulation pumps. Interestingly, the need for such pumps was eliminated a decade ago, with the advent of natural circulation for Vertical HRSGs up to 1800 psia (124 bar A) operating pressure.


Author(s):  
Yasuhiro Yoshida ◽  
Kazunori Yamanaka ◽  
Atsushi Yamashita ◽  
Norihiro Iyanaga ◽  
Takuya Yoshida

In the fast start-up for combined cycle power plants (CCPP), the thermal stresses of the steam turbine rotor are generally controlled by the steam temperatures or flow rates by using gas turbines (GTs), steam turbines, and desuperheaters to avoid exceeding the thermal stress limits. However, this thermal stress sensitivity to steam temperatures and flow rates depends on the start-up sequence due to the relatively large time constants of the heat transfer response in the plant components. In this paper, a coordinated control method of gas turbines and steam turbine is proposed for thermal stress control, which takes into account the large time constants of the heat transfer response. The start-up processes are simulated in order to assess the effect of the coordinated control method. The simulation results of the plant start-ups after several different cool-down times show that the thermal stresses are stably controlled without exceeding the limits. In addition, the steam turbine start-up times are reduced by 22–28% compared with those of the cases where only steam turbine control is applied.


1997 ◽  
Vol 119 (4) ◽  
pp. 250-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Jin ◽  
M. Ishida ◽  
M. Kobayashi ◽  
M. Nunokawa

Two operating advanced power plants, a supercritical steam plant and a gas-steam turbine combined cycle, have been analyzed using a methodology of graphical exergy analysis (EUDs). The comparison of two plants, which may provide the detailed information on internal phenomena, points out several inefficient segments in the combined cycle plant: higher exergy loss caused by mixing in the combustor, higher exergy waste from the heat recovery steam generator, and higher exergy loss by inefficiency in the power section, especially in the steam turbine. On the basis of these fundamental features of each plant, we recommend several schemes for improving the thermal efficiency of current advanced power plants.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Waseem Amjad ◽  
Mubeen Shahid ◽  
Anjum Munir ◽  
Furqan Asghar ◽  
Owais Manzoor

Energy management on the demand side is an important practice through which to address the challenge of energy shortage. In Pakistan, power plants have no specific energy management practice and a detail energy audit is normally observed as a one-time estimation that does not give significant information. In this study, an energy audit of a combined-cycle gas turbine power station was conducted and empirical data were compared with those obtained through a model developed in ASPEN, a simulation software that forecasts process performance. Next, an optimization tool was used to modify the ASPEN results and a comparison was drawn to estimate the amount of energy saved. It was found that compressor power consumption can be decreased up to 14.68% by increasing the temperature of compressed air from 320.2 °C to 423.79 °C for gas turbines. The output of gas turbines can be enhanced up to 13.5% and 21.4% with modelled and optimized data, respectively, using a multistage air compressor and multistage expansion. The calculated efficiency of the steam turbine was found to be 30.4%, which is 27.61% less than that of its designed efficiency. Steam turbine efficiency can be increased by 5% using a variable-speed water pump, leading to an estimated energy-saving potential of 8–9%. The combustion efficiency of gas turbines is not only important for higher turbine power output but also for better steam generation through heat-recovery steam generators in case of combined-cycle operations. The overall steam turbine efficiency is estimated to have increased by 19.27%, leading to a 12.68% improvement in combined efficiency.


Author(s):  
Michael McClintock ◽  
Kenneth L. Cramblitt

Monitoring thermal performance in the current generation of combined cycle power plants is frequently a challenge. The “lean” plant staff and organizational structure of the companies that own and operate these plants frequently does not allow the engineering resources to develop and maintain an effective program to monitor thermal performance. Additionally, in many combined cycle plants the highest priority is responding to market demands rather than maintaining peak efficiency. Finally, in many cases the plants are not designed with performance monitoring in mind, thus making it difficult to accurately measure commonly used indices of performance. This paper describes the performance monitoring program being established at a new combined cycle plant that is typical of many combined cycle plants built in the last five years. The plant is equipped with GE 7FA gas turbines and a GE reheat steam turbine. The program was implemented using a set of easy-to-use spreadsheets for the major plant components. The data for the calculation of indices of performance for the various components comes from the plant DCS system and the PI system (supplied by OSIsoft). In addition to the development of spreadsheets, testing procedures were developed to ensure consistent test results and plant personnel were trained to understand, use and maintain the spreadsheets and the information they produce.


Author(s):  
R. W. Jones ◽  
A. C. Shoults

This paper presents details of three large gas turbine installations in the Freeport, Texas, power plants of the Dow Chemical Company. The general plant layout, integration of useful outputs, economic factors leading to the selection of these units, and experiences during startup and operation will be reviewed. All three units operate with supercharging fan, evaporative cooler, and static excitation. Two of the installations are nearly identical 32,000-kw gas turbines operating in a combined cycle with a supplementary fired 1,500,000-lb/hr boiler and a 50,000-kw noncondensing steam turbine. The other installation is a 43,000-kw gas turbine and a 20,000-kw starter-helper steam turbine on the same shaft. The gas turbine exhaust is used to supply heated feedwater for four existing boilers.


Author(s):  
Edgar Vicente Torres González ◽  
Raúl Lugo Leyte ◽  
Helen Denise Lugo Méndez ◽  
Martín Salazar Pereyra ◽  
Juan José Ambriz García

One of the ways to make an efficient use of energy resources is to generate power from combined cycle power plants. Besides, the implementation of supplementary firing in a combined cycle plant helps to increase its generated power. In addition, the exergoeconomic analysis is pursued by 1) carrying out a systematic approach, based on the Fuel-Product methodology, in each component of the system; and 2) generating a set of equations, which allows compute the exergetic and exergoeconomic costs of each flow. For this analysis, the environmental conditions correspond 25 °C, 1.013 bar and 45 % relative humidity. Therefore, in this work an exergoeconomic analysis of a triple-level pressure combined cycle with a 2 × 2 × 1 arrangement with and without supplementary firing is performed, so the combined cycle with supplementary firing generates 484.62 MW and has a power relation between the gas turbine cycle and steam turbine cycle of 1.35:1. Meanwhile, the combined cycle without supplementary firing generates 427.25 MW with a power ratio of the gas turbine cycle and steam turbine cycle of 1.87:1.


Author(s):  
Mohammad R. Shahnazari ◽  
Abbas Abbassi

A common repowering option is converting a fossil-fired steam unit to a gas-fired combined-cycle plant by addition of a combustion turbine and a Heat Recovery Steam Generator. In this approach the existing steam turbine and related auxiliaries are typically retained and some plant modification is applied. This paper intends to study this option for two old power plants. In this study the HRSGs are modeled, designed and their costs are estimated. Total generating cost for both plants are calculated in order to show whether or not the final cost is competitive with the cost of a new combined cycle unit.


Author(s):  
V. A. Bulanin

Abstract. Aim. Despite the obvious expediency of their widespread implementation, gas turbine (GT) and combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plants were only used in limited quantities in the former USSR and CIS countries. Due to the exhaustion of possibilities to increase the fuel use efficiency and return on investment (ROI) in steam-turbine combined heat and power (CHP) plants, the development of GT and CCGT plants becomes an urgent problem. In current global practice, the primary fuel for gas turbines and combined cycle gas turbines is natural gas. However, until recently, there has been a lack of experience in the design, construction and operation of GT and CCGT plants in the CIS countries. Method. Due to the ad hoc nature of research in this area, it was necessary to systematise the results of existing studies and assess the state of research at the world level taking regional characteristics into account. Results. The article presents the main considerations and potential effectiveness of the use of gas turbines. Basic gas turbine construction schemes are investigated along with their techno-economic characteristics and an assessment of their comparative utility. Conclusion. Considering the widespread availability of natural gas, it is recommended that gas turbine and combined-cycle plants be installed as part of the process of technical re-equipment in the fuel and energy complex, industry, agriculture and municipal energy sectors as part of the design and construction of new energy sources in the light of positive world experience and the current level of development of gas turbine technologies. Ubiquitous implementation of gas turbine units in the centres supplying heat and electric loads will reduce the regional economy’s need for energy fuel and ensure an increase in energy capacity without the need to construct new complex and uneconomic steam turbine power plants. 


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