IJPGC2000-15031
Paper Number Here
Combined Cycle Heat Recovery Optimization
A. Ragland, Vogt-NEM W. Stenzel- EPRIsolutions
ABSTRACT The US electrical power industry has changed from a regulated business where utilities were virtually guaranteed a rate of retum to an unregulated business where the market sets the price. As with any unregulated business, the price of a service or supply is determined by supply and demand, and the seller must be competitive in order to meet its desired revenue target. Profitability will largely be determined by the business' overall operating efficiency. As the electricity supply business becomes more competitive, it becomes more important to optimize fuel selection and plant design to achieve competitive electricity prices while providing a satisfactory financial return for owners and other participants. Plant designs need to be adjusted to the specific project parameters to achieve optimum results. Fuel costs, yearly plant outputs, interest rates and other factors need to be considered when establishing plant designs. Four plant designs are compared using natural gas in this paper. This paper will present a view of the cost benefits achieved through heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) optimization. The many possible business and technology scenarios, and site specific nature of each project makes it difficult, time consuming and costly to effectively optimize fuel selection, generating unit selection, efficiency, capital cost, and return on investment. Using computer tools is very important to properly handle these complex analyses. The use of the SOAPP Combustion Turbine Software as an analysis/decision support tool for optimizing combined cycle plants is described herein. INTRODUCTION Achieving financial