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Energy Procedia 61 (2014) 2097 – 2100

The 6th International Conference on Applied Energy – ICAE2014

Component and process based exergy evaluation of a 600MW

coal-fired power plant
Lingnan Wua,b, Ligang Wanga,b, Yang Wangb, Xiaoying Hub, Changqing Dongb,
Zhiping Yanga, Yongping Yanga,*
a
School of Energy, Power and Mechanical Engineering, North China Electric Power Univesity, Beijing, 102206, China
b
National Engineering Laboratory for Biomass Power Generation Equipment, Beijing, 102206, China

Abstract

Component and process based exergy evaluation was performed on a typical 600MW coal-fired power
plant in China. Component based exergy analysis figures out and compares the exergetic performances of
each component by identifying the deficiencies of each component. Process based exergy analysis aims at
finding out the degree of imperfection of main processes, which will break the limitation of single-
component performance optimization (a sensitivity analysis) and enlighten the process-level optimization
by innovative flow design and the consideration of the interaction between components. This work provides
the exergy consumption and distribution profile of a large-scale coal-fired power plant with component-
based and process-based analysis, providing guidance for the energy-saving measures.
© 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
© 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).
Selection and/or
Peer-review peer-reviewofunder
under responsibility responsibility
the Organizing of ICAE
Committee of ICAE2014

Keywords: exergy; component evaluation; process evaluation; coal-fired power plant

1. Introduction

With advanced materials and manufacturing techniques, the efficiency of power plants is continuously
increasing, witnessed by the innovation of power plants of larger capacities and higher steam conditions,
but the huge fuel consumption in power plants still needs reasonable analysis for retrofits or optimization
[1]. Exergy analysis has been widely performed to various energy systems, provides useful guidelines, and
has become a useful tool for the analysis and optimization of energy systems combined with other
techniques [2, 3]. Previous exergy analysis work mainly focused on single component analyses but few
literature was found to analyse the system on a process basis. To this end, a 600MW unit was chosen and

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 617 72011; fax: +86 10 617 72177.
E-mail address: yyp@ncepu.edu.cn.

1876-6102 © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of ICAE2014
doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2014.12.084
2098 Lingnan Wu et al. / Energy Procedia 61 (2014) 2097 – 2100

the exergetic performance of each component was calculated firstly. Process-based exergetic performance
was further evaluated, which was beneficial in understanding the constitution and degree of imperfection
of the system during the energy conversion and transfer processes from a macroscopic perspective.

2. Model description and methodology

The schematic of the 600MW coal-fired power plant is shown in Fig. 1. Along the fluegas flow path,
the boiler system consists of the furnace, front platen superheater (FPSH), rear platen superheater (RPSH),
final reheater (FR), final superheater (FS), primary reheater(PR), economizer (ECO), and air preheater
(APH).

Fig. 1. Schematic of the 600MW coal fired power plant

The steam turbine system is configured with two-stage high-pressure cylinder (HPT), two-stage
intermediate-pressure cylinder (IPT), and five low-pressure cylinder (LPT). Exhaust steam is condensed in
the condenser and regenerated through four-stage low-pressure feedwater heater, a de-aerator and five-
stage high-pressure feedwater heater.
The exergy destruction rate ‫ܧ‬ሶ஽ǡ௞ of the kth component can be formulated as:
‫ܧ‬ሶ஽ǡ௞ ൌ ‫ܧ‬ሶிǡ௞ െ ‫ܧ‬ሶ௉ǡ௞ (1)
where ‫ܧ‬ሶிǡ௞ is the fuel exergy of the component and ‫ܧ‬ሶ௉ǡ௞ is the product exergy of the kth component.
The exergetic efficiency of the component is:
ɂ ൌ ‫ܧ‬ሶ௉ǡ௞ ൗ‫ܧ‬ሶிǡ௞ (2)
The exergy destruction ratio of the kth component is:
‫ݕ‬஽ ൌ ‫ܧ‬ሶ஽ǡ௞ ൗ‫ܧ‬ሶிǡ௧௢௧ (3)
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3. Results and discussion

3.1 System and component based analysis

The overall exergetic efficiency of power generation is 43.93%, of which 90.70% inefficiency is due
to exergy destruction, while the other 9.30% is caused by exergy losses. The furnace contributes the largest
exergy destruction, whose exergy destruction ratio even reaches as high as 30.13%. The FPSH and RPSH
also claim relative large inefficiencies with exergetic efficiency of 74.45% and 78.03%. Notably, the
efficiency of air preheater is also very low, merely better than the performance of the furnace. As for the
turbine system, the first stage of HPT accounts for relatively high exergy destruction as the steam working
in the HPT-1 is of high exergy quality, and little destruction in the first stage can lead to high energy
destruction and strong impact on the rest of the system. Besides, the last two stages of the LPT still needs
improvement as their exergy efficiency is only 79.21% and 84.50% due to poor working conditions. The
condenser has an exergy destruction ratio of 1.17%, which is almost of the same level as FR and PR, and
thus, the condenser is also an important source of inefficiency but it is not the dominant part contrast to the
conclusion drawn from conventional energy analysis. Energy-saving work is still necessary, especially for
the pipes conveying high-quality steam. The exergy analysis at the system and component level is helpful
for figuring out the components need innovation.
3.2 Process-based analysis
Key processes mainly include the combustion process, heat transfer process, emission process, heat to
mechanical energy transformation process, mixing process, mass transfer process and electricity
consumption process. As shown in Fig. 2., the process with the largest inefficiency is the heat transfer
process, which accounts for 39.2% of the total exergy dissipation, followed by combustion process (32.8%),
emission process (18.0%), heat to mechanical energy process (7.1% exergy destruction included in this
process), mixing (1.5%), mass transfer (1.1%), and electricity consumption (0.4%).
Mass transfer
Emission
18.0% Heat-Mech 1.1% Electricity
Combustion 7.1%
32.8% 0.4% Consumption
3.0%
1.5%
Heat transfer
39.2% Mixing

Figure. 2. Exergy consumption of system processes

Bled Steam
Exhaust Steam Feed Water
Cooling Water Slag
Unburnt Char 2.3%
5.2% 4.1%
Flue Gas 6.5%
Air 12.7% 15.9% HPT
ST G 25.1%
84.1% 43.8% 6.7%
Exhaust
Cooling IPT9.9%
Flue Gas Flue Gas
Water LPT
Working Fluid 41.1% 42.3%

Hear Transfer Process Emission Process Heat to Mechanical

305.44 MW 140.15 MW 55.06 MW

Figure. 3. Exergy consumption composition of three main processes

2100 Lingnan Wu et al. / Energy Procedia 61 (2014) 2097 – 2100

Process with the largest inefficiencies i.e. the heat transfer process, emission process and heat to
mechanical energy conversion process are discussed in detail in Fig. 3. For Heat transfer process, heat
transfer from flue gas to the working fluid dominates 84.1% of the total exergy destruction, followed by
fluegas to air (6.5%), cooling water to exhaust steam (5.2%), bled steam to feed water (4.1%). For Emission
process, exergy loss caused by cooling water and exhaust flue gas both claim about 42.0% of the emission
process inefficiencies, followed by unburnt char (12.7%) and slag (2.3%). Low pressure turbine is the most
severe inefficiency source (42.3%) as turbine isentropic efficiency decreases drastically. High quality steam
is turned into mechanical energy in HPT (25.1%), and little decrease in isentropic efficiency will result in
huge exergy destruction in this section. The generator (15.9%) is located at the end tail of the system, so it
is of topological importance as exergy destruction here will be amplified by the inefficiencies of the
upstream equipment.

4. Conclusions

The component based exergy figured out that furnace, FPSH, RPSH and air preheater are the main
inefficiency sources of the boiler system, and first stage of HPT, last stage of LPT still need to be improved.
According to process-based exergy analysis, heat transfer process dominates 39.2% of the total inefficiency,
mainly caused by heat transfer between flue gas and the working fluid, and combustion process accounts
for 32.8%. Emission process also incurs 18% inefficiency which is induced by the loss of exhaust flue gas
and the cooling water. The HPT, LPT and generator are the main inefficient factor during the heat-
mechanical-electricity conversion. This work provides the exergy consumption and distribution profile of
a large-scale coal-fired power plant with component-based and process-based analysis, providing
guidelines for the energy-saving work.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Joint Funds of the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(Grant No. U1261210 ), the Ph.D. Programs Foundation of Ministry of Education of China
(20120036120007) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (12QN14) for the
financial support.

References

[1] Yang Y, Guo X, Wang N. Power generation from pulverized coal in China. Energy. 2010;35:4336-48.
[2] Restrepo Á, Miyake R, Kleveston F, Bazzo E. Exergetic and environmental analysis of a pulverized coal power plant. Energy.
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[3] Yang Y, Wang L, Dong C, Xu G, Morosuk T, Tsatsaronis G. Comprehensive exergy-based evaluation and parametric study of a
coal-fired ultra-supercritical power plant. Applied Energy. 2013;112:1087-99.

Biography
Lingnan Wu is a Ph.D. candidate majoring in thermal power engineering in North China
Electric Power University. His research interests mainly include analysis and optimization
of large-scale coal-fired power plants, and pollutant control strategy.