Identify the Rational Performance and Effect of End State Temperature on a Regenerative–Reheat Coal-Based Thermal Power Plant in India

Abstract

India, which is going to be world’s most populous nation by 2024, is facing an unprecedented demand for energy to feed its domestic as well as industrial sectors. Approximately 56% of the total installed capacity of energy is being fed by coal-based thermal power plants. With ever-rising environmental concerns along with the shrinking coal reserves all across the world, it becomes all the way imperative to reduce the energy losses and in the process increases the overall efficiency with minimal environmental impact. The primary objective of this article is to eliminate unproductive retrofits at the thermal power plants by establishing a correlation between conventional energy analysis and exergy analysis based on second law to utilize the coal in a more effective and cleaner way. The study is carried out on a 210 MW LMW coal-based power plant and provides a detailed performance analysis for each individual component of energy system. It is found that even 10 °C increase in the temperature of the environment causes enhancement of 0.29 MW in total irreversibility rate and reduction of 0.068% in rational efficiency of the plant.