Energy and Exergy Analysis of a Thermal Power Plant

Increasing demand of power has made keen interest of study to improve the efficiency of power plant. The energy assessment must be made through the energy quantity as well as the quality. But the usual energy analysis evaluates the energy generally on its quantity only. However, the exergy analysis assesses the energy on quantity as well as the quality. The aim of the exergy analysis is to identify the magnitudes and the locations of real energy losses, in order to improve the existing systems, processes or components. This project carried out energy and exergy analyses of a Vijayawada Thermal Power Plant (VTPS) in order to evaluate the energetic and exergetic efficiencies and irreversibilities of units, sections and the overall system. In this study exergy analysis for different components of a 210 MW thermal power plant has been performed and the results show that the exergy destruction is more in the Low Pressure Turbine. Exergetic efficiency is compared with the thermal efficiency. Comparison of energy and exergy loss where the useful energy is loss is identified and improve the efficiency of component by making the necessary arrangements to the system components.