Combined Cycle Power Plants

Presentation By:
Cherry Rose Doctor
Roselle Dimaano
INTRODUCTION
 A Combined cycle power plant is a highly
efficient power generation unit.
 They are the cleanest and highly efficient.
 The process of combined cycle power generation
recovers the temperature from the exhaust gas
and utilizes that heat in power generation.
 It is believed that they produce around 50% more
electricity from the same fuel consumption.
 So combined cycle power plants are economic as
compared the conventional ones.
Combined Cycle Power Plant

• As the name combined cycle suggests, this type

of power plant comprises of a combination of
both gas and steam power production
technologies.
• A combined cycle power plant relies on the
simple fact that a gas turbine produces both
power and hot exhaust gases. As the power is
channeled to a generator, the hot gases are used
to produce steam. This steam runs a steam
turbine to produce extra power.
How a combined cycle power plant works?
• Similar to a simple cycle gas turbine plant, the combined cycle
gas turbine involves air inlet as the first stage. The air passes
through a sizeable section where it undergoes cleaning and
cooling depending on the control conditions. The aim of this
process is to ensure that inlet air is safe for the turbine
compressor. It is worth noting that air has several impurities that
may damage the compressor and other turbine components.
These impurities are generally categorized as solid state, liquid
state and gaseous state contaminants.
• After purification, the air undergoes compression, combines with natural
gas and then ignites. The ensuing expansion creates pressure that spins
the turbine blades. At this point, the generator spins and produces power.
As you might expect, this stage produces a substantial amount of waste
heat. Unlike in the simple cycle plant, the CCPP directs the waste heat to
another section. They call it a Heat Recovery Steam Generator (HRSG)
because it captures the waste heat. Instead of going to the exhaust stack,
this heat is directed to the steam turbine, where it generates extra power.
Using this device, a combined cycle power plant is able to take advantage
of the exhaust gases.
• As mentioned earlier, exhaust gases form part of the by-products of this
process. Using a Heat Recovery Steam Generator (HRSG), a combined
cycle power plant is able to take advantage of the exhaust gases. How
does a Heat Recovery Steam Generator operate? Its process is simple: the
hot gases heat evaporates water in tubes to produce steam. This steam in
turn turns a steam turbine blades leading to extra power production.
Schematic Representation of Combine Cycle Power Plants
Combined Cycle Power Plant Animation
• Steam turbines in a combined cycle power plant extract energy from the steam and convert it to work, which rotates the shaft of the turbine.
Steam Turbine
The amount of energy that the steam turbine extracts from the steam depends on the enthalpy drop across the machine.
• The enthalpy of the steam is a function of its temperature and pressure. As inlet and outlet temperature and pressure are known, one can use
a Mollier diagram to determine the amount of energy available. Steam turbine sizes range from a few kilowatts to over 1000 megawatts.
• Operating Control modes of Steam Turbine: Fixed pressure mode, Sliding pressure mode, Load control.
• receives the exhaust gases from the Gas Turbine discharge. The exhaust gas, flowing in the counter flow direction with respect to the steam/water coils, Heat Recovery Steam
cools down by transferring heat to steam/water. The flue gas temperature at the stack is about 110°C. Lower temperatures 93°C can be used if the fuel Generator
gas is very clean and sulfur-free. ( HRSG )
• The HRSG is similar to a heat exchanger in which the shell side carries the flue gas and the tube side carries steam or water. It also has the
characteristics of a boiler because there are steam drums, where the generated steam is separated from boiling water before entering the superheaters.
• The HRSG can be horizontal or vertical, according to the direction of the flue gas path. The horizontal HRSGs are most common. The vertical ones
mainly are limited to installations where space is very tight.
• converts natural gas or fluid into mechanical energy. A simple gas turbine has three sections: a compressor, a combustor, and a power Gas Turbine (GT)
turbine.
• It operates on the Brayton cycle principal. The working philosophy of gas turbines is simple. The compressed air is mixed with fuel and then
burned under constant pressure. Then the hot gas flows through the turbine to produce work.
Components of a Combined Cycle Power Plant
• In some instances, when the electric power generation is a must, it should be possible to run the gas turbine in an open cycle and
exhaust the flue gas into the atmosphere instead of sending it to the HRSG, regardless of the overall efficiency. This requires a bypass
Diverter
stack and a diverter that closes the path to the HRSG and opens it to the atmosphere through the bypass stack.
• the diverter is connected to the GT exhaust duct before the diverging cone of the HRSG, and this implies that the GT has to meet the
Stack and
plant emissions limits, as any SCR in the HRSG is also bypassed. Throttling by the diverter could also be used to control steam
generation in the HRSG. This configuration is rare.
Bypass
• The most important characteristic of a well-designed diverter is its ability to completely switch the flue gas from the bypass stack to
HRSG, under all operating conditions.
• The non–condensable have to be evacuated from the condenser before steam can be introduced at start-up (hogging process) and
should be continuously removed during normal operation (holding process)
System
• HOGGING PROCESS – For the hogging process, the requirements are to lower the pressure as quickly as possible from the
atmospheric pressure (946 mbar(a)) to 250 mbar(a) ) within 30 minutes.
Air Extraction
• HOLDING PROCESS – Once the vacuum is established and during normal operation, the hogging extraction skid is shut down and
only one holding vacuum set continuously removes the non-condensable.
• The air-cooled steam condenser (ACC-Fig. 5) condenses the turbine exhaust steam or the de-superheated steam from the turbine
bypass. The condensate collected in the steam/condensate headers drains under gravity to the condensate tank, from where it is
pumped by the condensate extraction pumps to the boiler system on level control.
• The turbine back pressure is controlled by fans using pressure transmitters on ST exhaust. Pressure transmitters protect the ACC in
case of overpressure. The control system modulates a number of fans into operation and fan speed and steam isolating valve position to
meet the back pressure set point.
Condenser
• Temperature transmitters in the main steam duct protect the condenser against overheating.
• Types of Condensing System
Air Cooled
• Water-cooled surface condensers and wet condensing system
• Air-cooled condensers
• Alternative condensing systems
Other Accessories of Combined Cycle Power Plant
The Main Parts
• If an air condenser is used, the closed-circuit cooling water system becomes much smaller, because the amount of water needed in the rest of the plant Cooling Water
is a relatively small percentage of that needed for the water condenser. The users of the CCCW are turbine generators, condensate and feed water Closed Circuit
pumps, sampling systems, etc.
• Other auxiliary components of a gas turbine can be: Gear Box, Intercooler heat exchanger, regeneration heat exchanger & supplementary firing system
• The water needed for filling the HRSG and as make-up water during normal operation is generated in a demineralization plant. The demineralization plant is
usually controlled by its own PLC, which is interfaced with the DCS, but sometimes is controlled directly by the plant DCS system. Plant
• The demineralized water is stored in a tank that should be sized sufficiently large to provide water in case of disruption in the production. It should also store
Demineralization
enough water to supply the quantity needed for pipe blowing in the pre-commissioning stage, without the need for waiting for the production of new water. This
consideration can be the basis for sizing the demineralized water storage tank
• To keep the required steam purity, a small percentage (1–3%) of the water in the steam drums is discharged to continuous blow-down. Tank
• For large boilers, there is a pressure blow-down tank into which the HP and IP steam drums drain. In addition, an atmospheric blow-off tank is also Blow Down
provided to receive the water from the blow-down tank plus the drains from the LP drum and the blow-off from the HP and IP drums.
• The superheated steam to the steam turbine is bypassed to condenser during the start-up, ST shutdown, and load rejection. The bypass arrangement
includes:
• HP bypass from HP header to IP header (cold reheat side if reheating is implemented) Bypass System
• IP bypass from IP header (hot reheat side if reheating is implemented) to the condenser.
• LP by-pass from LP header to the condenser.
• Each bypass requires a pressure reduction and desuperheating with boiler feedwater or condensate to meet downstream condenser conditions.
• The LP drum can be used to feed the boiler feedwater (BFW) pumps on level control as explained in three elements control system. If there are HP Water Pump
and IP sections, the BFW pumps can be multiple-stage centrifugal pumps with an intermediate discharge for the IP section. Automatic minimum flow
Boiler Feed
bypass, Three-way Yarway valve, on the HP discharge nozzle of the pump is used for minimum flow protection.
Auxiliary Systems of Combined Cycle Power Plant
Advantages: Disadvantages:
 Low Capital  Building this power plant is quite complex.
 The abundance of fuel That means that it has to be designed and
test properly. A single mistake can ruin the
sources entire area around those power plants.
 Less emission
 High Maintenance cost: Maintaining such
 Brilliant efficiency complex systems is another challenging
 Large availability part. Care should be taken of every part
regularly.

 It uses natural gas and biogas. Therefore,

it can be constructed in places where
these gases are present. So, it is an area
bound power plant.
• Applications:
The CCPP is used in more than 4000 applications such as in
industry, hospitals, various institutions, etc. It has been mainly used
in hospitals and the manufacturing of ethanol, glass, pulp, and
paper. Many refineries, sawmills as well as plastic industries are
using the CCPP.

• Conclusion:
As there is always the need for energy, the combined cycle
power plant is the best choice we have. Many researchers are
working on the CCPP to increase its efficiency as well as to reduce
its effects on the environment.