Transformation into combined cycle of old steam plants in a competitive market
The ongoing energy market liberalization is pushing the electricity industries towards generation systems capable to achieve low production costs for their plants. Combined cycles are today the best way to reach the above targets thanks to their very high efficiency, short completion time and low capital intensity. In industrialized countries like Italy, the existing steam plant fleet comprises several units with operating life of more than 20 years and modest efficiencies. Thanks to the following: possible easy and cheap revamping of existing steam turbines in order to extend their residual life of around 15 years or more; sites already devoted to power generation with reduced needs for further authorization procedures; existing connection to the grid and therefore no need for new overhead electric line construction (today practically impossible due to social and environmental opposition); the transformation into combined cycles of some existing old units (by replacing the old boiler with gas turbines and heat recovery steam generator) is of strategic importance for the mid term development and efficiency improvement of the power generation system. For the specific Italian reality, the paper reports the results of a study on the transformation into combined cycle of existing steam units sized 300 MW and 150 MW (the most common sizes in Italy) highlighting the advantages in terms of: reduction of generated kWh costs with respect to present power stations which otherwise should be modified (either by adding gas treatment systems or by changing the feeding fuel) to meet the emission limitation targets; drastic emission reduction for all the major pollutants: CO{sub 2} (increased efficiency), SO{sub x} (natural gas is sulfur free), NO{sub x} (low NO{sub x} burning technologies); reduced primary energy needs (Italy imports approximately 90% of its fossil fuel consumption).
- Research Organization:
- ABB S.p.A. (IT)
- OSTI ID:
- 20018856
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9806214-; TRN: IM200018%%90
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Power-Gen Europe'98, Milan (IT), 06/09/1998--06/11/1998; Other Information: 1 CD-ROM. Operating Systems: Windows 3.1, '95, '98 and NT; Macintosh; and UNIX; PBD: [1998]; Related Information: In: Power-gen Europe'98, [2400] pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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