Parametric analysis of externally fired combined cycle power generation systems

Combined cycle power plant is an advanced technology which produces power at high efficiencies. This results in higher power output and reduced pollutants and green house gas emissions. In combined cycle power plants the gas turbine inlet temperature is high and the exhaust gases temperature is high enough to utilize in a heat recovery steam generator to produce steam for the bottoming cycle.;In the present work the performance of an externally fired combined cycle power generation unit is investigated based on energy approach. The effect of operating conditions such as pressure ratio and turbine inlet temperature on combined cycle efficiency, net work output, and on carbon dioxide emissions are investigated. The solid fuel combustor is used to heat the compressed air before it goes into the natural gas combustor. The basic power plant configuration includes multistage compression with single expansion stage and simple steam cycle in the bottoming cycle. The second configuration includes two expansion stages and reheat between them. The third configuration is similar to basic configuration with the addition of steam generation in the solid fuel combustor. The fourth configuration is combination the previous described configurations. The results from the four configurations are compared for different operating conditions. The results of basic power plant configuration are also validated with published literature.