300 MW Natural Gas Power Plant Design 2013 Chapter 1: Introduction

Natural gas is a mixture of hydrocarbon gases, its primary composition is methane. This is the least polluting fossil fuel. It is partly due to the relatively high hydrogen content that becomes water in the combustion. The CO 2 emission from natural gas is smaller than from oil and coal. There are two processed natural gas, the compressed natural gas, and the liquefied natural gas. The compressed natural gas is formed by compressing the natural gas to less than 1% of the volume it occupies at standard atmospheric pressure. It is stored and distributed in hard containers at a pressure of 200248 bar (29003600 psi), usually in cylindrical or spherical shapes, while a natural gas cooled to a temperature of 162 C (-260F) becomes liquid and its volume will be reduced 600 times. Liquefied natural gas is easier to store than the gaseous form since it takes up much less space making the transportation of LNG easier than when it is in its gaseous form. CNG's volumetric energy density is estimated to be 42% that of LNG's. This means that liquefied natural gases energy stored given per unit volume is greater than the compressed natural gases. CNGs were commonly used in automotive while LNGs were commonly used in power plants. The proposed power plant will have a total output capacity of 350MW, composed of 1 gas turbines and 1 steam turbine. In this proposed design power plant the fuel to be used is liquefied natural gas. Combined Cycle Gas Turbine was used in the design to maximize the use of natural gas which all of exhaust gases were recovered by installing Heat Recovery Steam Generator for better performance of the chosen plant. CCGT is also used because it offers greatest efficiency in power generation. Power output of the steam turbine is typically 1/3 of the total output of the total power output of the Combined Cycle Power Plant. A CCGT has a high efficiency in converting fuel to electricity.