Steady state modeling on energy and exergy analysis of a pulverized coal fired thermal power plant

Steady state concept has relevance in many fields, particularly in economics, engineering and thermodynamics. In a steady state system, the recent observed behavior will continue to be so in future. Energy and exergy analysis (first and second law of thermodynamic) in steady state condition of a thermal power plant provides in-depth information to find out areas for potential improvement in efficiency. This study deals with the performance analysis of a pulverized coal fired power plant using energy and exergy analysis in steady state condition. The overall plant performance is assessed by undertaking detailed modeling and simulating thermal cycle of the plant scheme. Off design energy and exergy utilization efficiencies and thermodynamic properties are assessed from the model simulation based on actual operating data collected from the plant Distributed Control System (DCS) at operating load of 460 MW on 15-min average for a period of 8 h. The analysis revealed that the combustion chamber and boiler are the major source of exergy destruction with 40.29% and 53.20% respectively. Whereas gross energy and exergy efficiency of overall plant are calculated as 34.33% and 31.47% at 460 MW gross generation as compared to the design rating of 37.77% and 34.53% respectively at 500 MW. This paper deals with methodology and assessment of exergy destruction in the plant and how to reduce it. Simultaneously a comparison has been made of energy losses vis-a-vis exergy destruction of various plant components, which brings out advantages of using exergy method over energy method calculation. Copyright (C) 2015 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.