The Most Efficient Power

Plants
In your standard fossil-fuel power plant, the inefficiency begins when the coal or gas ignites.
In some plants, as little as 30% of the energy created ends up in the power grid. The rest,
in the form of heat, blows out the smokestacks. If one could build power plants that used
80% of the energy instead, everyone would be rushing to do so, right?
Not so fast. Yes, such plants exist, but advocates say potential customers are staying away.
Why? Utilities and regulators are scaring them off.
The 80% efficiency seen in combined heat and power plants, known as cogeneration plants,
is ideally suited for large institutionsuniversities, hospitals, airportsthat have extensive
electricity and thermal energy demand in a concentrated area. Rather than letting the heat
escape, a cogeneration plant uses the excess energy to power a heating and cooling
system.
But what a university sees as a no-brainer cost reduction, a utility often sees as a threat to
sales.
Its not uncommon for utilities, when they hear cogeneration, to bring out the white blood
cells to inoculate it from happening, says Rob Thornton, president of the International
District Energy Association.
Take the case of MIT, which spent years researching and developing a 22-megawatt
cogeneration plant for its campus. Some $40 million later, the plant was ready in 1995.
Instead of being welcomed, however, MITs utility, the no longer in existence CELCo, hit the
university with a $6 million charge.
CELCo said it developed its system to meet the power needs of MITits second-largest
clientand the charge was needed to cover the loss. Under regulations then in place, the
Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities agreed with CELCo. The charge was knocked
down to $4.5 million, but still represented more than 10% of the cost of the plant. The legal
wrangling continued.
MIT finally prevailed three years later, and only after a change in state law nullified the
utilitys ability to charge the fees. CELCo was swallowed away in a merger.
These skirmishes continue. Thornton describes a regional hospital whose attempt to build a
cogeneration project was beset for years by a hostile utility. It took almost a Sisyphean
effort on the part of the project principals with the hospital to persevere with the project,
Thornton said.
The hospital doesnt want to publicly discuss the issue. Yes, it was rough, and yes, they are
proud to have persevered. But they still have to deal with that utility. They declined
Forbes.coms requests for an interview.
Its one thing to absorb regulatory or legal review or another round of process on a five- or
six-megawatt project, says Thornton. But to have that same process applied to a onemegawatt project? The benefits dont outweigh. Not when the utilities can do this rope-adope.

The potential efficiency savings from such projects are immense, says Neal Elliott, an expert
on combined heat and power (CHP) systems with the American Council for an EnergyEfficient Economy.
Quads of energy savings could be realized by fully deploying this across the country,
Elliott says. To put that in perspective, the Energy Information Agency, part of the U.S.
Department of Energy, estimates the country annually consumes 100 quads (lingo for
quadrillion British thermal units)y. By that same EIA data, the sum total of all hydroelectric,
geothermal, solar, wind and biomass power, for the entire country, was only 6.8 quads in
2007.
Utilities that want to can often hit projects with repeated delays. Elliott describes the sort of
scenarios hes seen. Require an interconnection study, takes 60 days, present the study,
60 days to do that, the utility takes 90 days to review that, then if they have any questions,
you have another 30 days. When it adds up, it may take a year or two or three. And time
is money.
Some time and money are, of course, needed to ensure that the system integrates properly,
Elliott says, but gratuitous delays have killed more CHP projects than anything else, he
says.
Not all utilities are hostile to the plants, and many are jockeying to be the ones that build
CHP plants for their clients. Every utility is regulated mostly by its state, says Ed Legge, a
spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, the Washington lobbying group that represents
the utility industry. Whether it can recover costs for efficiency programs is regulated by the
states.
On peak days in the summer, when suddenly everyone cranks up their air conditioners full
blast, fossil fuel generators that can be fired up on a moments notice will be needed into
the foreseeable future, Legge says. But as input costs rise, the utilities grow more
aggressive in seeking efficiency gains. Legge notes that newer fossil fuel plants use the heat
that was once wasted to turn an extra steam turbine, a process known as combined cycle.
Under a cap and trade system, incentives toward efficiency would be even stronger.
There are enlightened utilities and regulators who see carbon trading and energy
efficiency as part of the new mix going forward, Thornton says. But Im not ready to say
were one big happy family and everyone is kumbaya.

Compare the Efficiency of Different Power Plants

written by: johnzactruba edited by: Rebecca Scudder updated: 5/27/2010
Electricity generation is only conversion of energy from different forms to Electricity which is the most convenient form
of energy. How efficiently does this conversion take place? We take look at the conversion efficiencies
common types of Electricity generation plants.
Energy can neither be created nor destroyed First Law of Thermodynamics.... Mayer.

Coal Fired Power Plants

of the

Coal based power

accounts for almost 41 % of the worlds electricity generation. Coal fired power plants operate on

the modified Rankine thermodynamic cycle.The efficiency is dictated by the parameters of this thermodynamic
cycle. The overall coal plant efficiency ranges from 32 % to 42 %. This is mainly dictated by the Superheat and
Reheat steam temperatures and Superheat pressures. Most of the large power plants operate at steam pressures of
170 bar and 570 C Superheat, and 570 C reheat temperatures. The efficiencies of these plants range from 35 % to
38 %. Super critical power plants operating at 220 bar and 600/600 C can achieve efficiencies of 42 %. Ultra super
critical pressure power plants at 300 bar and 600/600 C can achieve efficiencies in the range of 45% to 48 %
efficiency.

Natural Gas Fired Power Plants

Natural Gas fired (including LNG fired) power plants account for almost 20 % of the worlds electricity generation.
These power plants use Gas Turbines or Gas Turbine based combined cycles. Gas turbines in the simple cycle
mode, only Gas turbines running, have an efficiency of 32 % to 38 %. The most important parameter that dictates the
efficiency is the maximum gas temperature possible. The latest Gas Turbines with technological advances in
materials and aerodynamics has efficiencies upto 38 %. In the combined cycle mode, the new "H class" Gas turbines
with a triple pressure HRSG and steam turbine can run at 60 % efficiency at ISO conditions. This is by far the highest
efficiency in the thermal power field.

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Renewables
Hydro turbines, the oldest and the most commonly used renewable energy source, have the highest efficient of all
power conversion process. The potential head of water is available right next to the turbine, so there are no energy
conversion losses, only the mechanical and copper losses in the turbine and generator and the tail end loss. The
efficiency is in the range of 85 to 90 %.
Wind turbines have an overall conversion efficiency of 30 % to 45 %.
These two renewable sources, though efficient, are dependent on availability of the energy source.
Solar thermal systems

can achieve efficiency up to 20 %. The moving path of the sun and the weather conditions

drastically alter the incident solar radiation. The efficiency on an annual basis, around 12 %, is considerably less than
on a daily basis.
Geo thermal systems, on the other hand, also use the Rankine cycle with steam temperatures at saturation point.
Since there is no other conversion loss, this plant can achieve efficiencies in the range of 35 %.

Nuclear
The efficiency of nuclear plants is little different. On the steam turbine side they use the Rankine thermodynamic
cycle with steam temperatures at saturated conditions. This gives a lower thermal cycle efficiency than the high
temperature coal fired power plants. Thermal cycle efficiencies are in the range of 38 %. Since the energy release
rate in nuclear fission is extremely high, the energy transferred to steam is a very small percentage - only around 0.7
%. This makes the overall plant efficiency only around 0.27 %. But one does not consider the fuel efficiency in
nuclear power plants; fuel avaliabity and radiation losses take center stage

Diesel Engines
Diesel engines, large capacity industrial engines, deliver efficiencies in the range of 35 42 %.
The power industry is trying to increase this conversion efficiency of power plants to maximise elctricity generation
and reduce environmental impact.