Increasing ambient temperature significantly reduces the efficiency and power output of the combined cycle power plant. Gas turbine (GT) inlet-cooling decreases air temperature at the inlet of the air compressor; thus, reduces the work of the compressor and increases the mass flow rate and power output. The steam-cooled GT has a higher output per kg of inlet air than the air-cooled GT; therefore, for the same power output, the mass flow rate and as a consequence the cooling load is lower for the steam-cooled GT. Accordingly, the impact of applying GT inlet-cooling on the performance of the combined cycle is expected to be different for the steam-cooled GT from that for the air-cooled GT. For hot and humid climates, the typical GT inlet-cooling techniques of evaporative, inlet-fogging, and desiccant-cooling are not effective while absorption and refrigeration GT inlet-cooling systems consume significant amounts of energy, which influence the efficiency and power output. In this paper, novel GT inlet-cooling techniques that take advantages of the process air and exhaust heat energies are introduced. The commercial STAG 107H steam/air-cooled GT combined cycle with such innovative GT inlet-cooling systems are modeled. The effectiveness of the novel cooling techniques is compared with that of the available GT inlet-cooling systems of inlet-fogging, refrigeration, and absorption. The impacts of varying ambient temperature and relative humidity on the performance of the commercial combined cycle with the different GT inlet-cooling techniques are presented, compared, and the results are discussed. The results indicate that the introduced innovative techniques for GT inlet-cooling are the most suitable for hot and humid climates with improvements of up to 1.2 percentage point in the combined cycle efficiency and 1.4% in the power output when compared with the refrigeration and absorption GT inlet-cooling systems.
The application of novel techniques for gas turbine inlet-cooling that improve both the power and efficiency of the modern commercial steam-air-cooled gas turbine combined cycle power plants in hot and humid climates
2015
Article (Journal)
English
BKL: | 52.30 / 52.50 / 52.50 Energietechnik: Allgemeines / 52.30 Strömungskraftmaschinen, Turbomaschinen | |
Local classification TIB: | 275/5345/5365/5500 |
Inlet Air Cooling Methods for Gas Turbine Based Power Plants
Online Contents | 2006
|GAS TURBINE OPERATION - Turbine Inlet Air Cooling Increases Power Output 20 Percent
Online Contents | 1998
Air-Cooled Generators For Gas Turbine Power Plants
Online Contents | 1997