From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A load following power plant, also known as mid-merit, is a power plant that adjusts its power output as demand for
electricity fluctuates throughout the day.[1] Load following plants are typically in-between base load and peaking power
plants in efficiency, speed of start up and shut down, construction cost, cost of electricity and capacity factor.

1 Base load and peaking power plants

2 Load following power plants
2.1 Gas turbine power plants
2.2 Diesel and gas engine power plants
2.3 Hydroelectric power plants
2.4 Coal based power plants
2.5 Nuclear power plants
2.5.1 Boiling water reactors
2.5.2 Pressurized water reactors
3 Solar and wind power plants
4 See also
5 References

Base load power plants operate at maximum output. They shut down or reduce power only to perform maintenance or
repair. Base load power plants include coal, fuel oil, almost all nuclear, geothermal, hydroelectric, biomass and combined
cycle natural gas plants.

Peaking power plants operate only during times of peak demand. In countries with widespread air conditioning, demand
peaks around the middle of the afternoon, so a typical peaking power plant may start up a couple of hours before this point
and shut down a couple of hours after. However, the duration of operation for peaking plants varies from a good portion of
the waking day to only a couple dozen hours per year. Peaking power plants include hydroelectric and gas turbine power
plants. Many gas turbine power plants can be fuelled with natural gas or diesel. Most plants burn natural gas, but a supply
of diesel is sometimes kept on hand in case the gas supply is interrupted. Other gas turbines can only burn either diesel or
natural gas.

Load following power plants run during the day and early evening. They either shut down or greatly curtail output during
the night and early morning, when the demand for electricity is the lowest. The exact hours of operation depend on
numerous factors. One of the most important factors for a particular plant is how efficiently it can convert fuel into
electricity. The most efficient plants, which are almost invariably the least costly to run per kilowatt-hour produced, are
brought online first. As demand increases, the next most efficient plants are brought on line and so on. The status of the
electrical grid in that region, especially how much base load generating capacity it has, and the variation in demand are also
very important. An additional factor for operational variability is that demand does not vary just between night and day.
There are also significant variations in the time of year and day of the week. A region that has large variations in demand
will require a large load following or peaking power plant capacity because base load power plants can only cover the
capacity equal to that needed during times of lowest demand.

Load following power plants can be hydroelectric power plants, diesel and gas engine power plants, combined cycle gas
turbine power plants and steam turbine power plants that run on natural gas or heavy fuel oil, although heavy fuel oil plants
make up a very small portion of the energy mix. A relatively efficient model of gas turbine that runs on natural gas can also
make a decent load following plant.
Gas turbine power plants

Gas turbine power plants are the most flexible in terms of adjusting power level, but are also among the most expensive to
operate. Therefore they are generally used as "peaking" units at times of maximum power demand. Gas turbines find only
limited application as prime movers for power generation; one such use is power generation at remote military facilities,
mine sites and rural or isolated communities. This is because gas turbine generators typically have significantly higher heat
loss rates than steam turbine or diesel power plants; their higher fuel costs quickly outweigh their initial advantages in most
applications. Applications to be evaluated include:

1. Supplying relatively large power requirements in a facility where space is at a significant premium, such as hardened
structures.
2. Mobile, temporary or difficult access site such as isolated communities, isolated mine sites, or troop support or
line-of-sight stations.
3. Peak shaving, in conjunction with a more-efficient generating station.
4. Emergency power, where a gas turbines lightweight and relatively vibration-free operation are of greater importance
than fuel consumption over short periods of operation. However, the starting time of gas turbines may not be suitable
for a given application.
5. Combined cycle or cogeneration power plants where turbine exhaust waste heat can be economically used to
generate additional power and thermal energy for process or space heating.

Diesel and gas engine power plants

Diesel and gas engine power plants can be used for base load to stand-by power production due to their high overall
flexibility. Such power plants can be started rapidly to meet the grid demands. These engines can be operated efficiently on
a wide variety of fuels, adding to their flexibility.

Some applications are: base load power generation, wind-diesel, load following, cogeneration and trigeneration.

Hydroelectric power plants

Hydroelectric power plants can operate as base load, load following or peaking power plants. They have the ability to start
within minutes, and in some cases seconds. How the plant operates depends heavily on its water supply. Many plants do
not have enough water to operate anywhere near their full capacity on a continuous basis. Plants that have a large amount
of water may operate as base load or as load following power plants. Those that have limited amounts of water may
operate as peaking power plants.

Also, the plants may change their operating style depending on the time of year. For example, the plant may operate as a
peaking power plant during the dry season, and as a base load or load following power plant during the wet season. This
generated with the water released to maintain the stream habitat. For example, a 100 MW hydroelectric plant may
generate 5 MW when it is releasing only enough water for downstream habitat.

Except when it is undergoing maintenance and the water is bypassed around the turbines, the plant will always be
generating at least 5 MW. Some plants have a small turbine for these releases because it is inefficient to run a little bit of
water through a large turbine. Run of the river hydroelectric plants do not have any water storage. They simply divert
water from a stream, run it through the turbines and then return it to the stream. For this reason, they are always base load
plants. However, they may be forced to shut down or reduce the amount of diverted water when the stream flow is
insufficient to provide habitat for aquatic organisms while providing water for electricity generation.

Hydro electric power plants can be effectively utilised for making extra revenue/profit in an electric grid with highly erratic
/fluctuating grid frequency where there is no effective grid management. When grid frequency is above the rated value (ex;
Indian grid frequency is exceeding the rated 50 Hz for most of the duration in a month/day[2]), the extra energy/power
available can be consumed by adding extra load (say agriculture pump sets load) to the grid and this energy drawl is
available at nominal price or no price. However, there is no guarantee for the erratic grid frequency falling below the rated
value with the added extra load which would call for high energy drawl price. To arrest the fall of frequency below the
optimum / rated value, the available hydro power plants shall be kept normally in no load/nominal load operation in
synchronized condition and the load would automatically ramp up/down strictly following the grid frequency (i.e. the
hydro units would run at no load condition when frequency is above 50 Hz and generate power up to full load in case the
grid frequency is below 50 Hz). Thus an utility can draw two or more times energy from the grid by loading the hydro units
less than 50% of the duration and the effective use of available water is enhanced more than twice the conventional peak
load operation. However, the hydro units have to be operated as per the permitted ramping rate as per the operating
instructions of the turbine manufacturer or system design.[3]

Coal based power plants

Large size coal fired thermal power plants can also be used as load following / variable load power stations. These power
plants are generally incorporated with following features to achieve this flexibility techno economically.

Sliding pressure operation: Sliding pressure operation of the steam generator allows the power plant to generate
electricity without much deterioration in fuel efficiency at part load operation up to 75% of the nameplate capacity.
Over loading capability: The power plants are generally designed to run at 5 to 7% above the name plate rating for
5% duration in a year
Frequency follow governor controls: The load generation can be automatically varied to suit the grid frequency
needs.
Two shift daily operation for five days in a week: The needed warm and hot start up of these power stations are
designed to take lesser time to achieve full load operation. Thus these power plants are not strictly base load power
generation units.
HP/LP steam bypass systems: This feature allows the steam turbo generator to reduce the load quickly and allows
the steam generator to adjust to the load requirement with a lag.

Nuclear power plants

Older nuclear (and coal) power plants may take many hours, if not days, to achieve a steady state power output. In general
it is not economical for large thermal installations such as nuclear power plants to practice load following.

Modern nuclear plants with light water reactors are designed to have strong manoeuvring capabilities. Nuclear power
plants in France and in Germany operate in load-following mode and so participate in the primary and secondary
frequency control. Some units follow a variable load programme with one or two large power changes per day. Some
designs allow for rapid changes of power level around rated power, a capability that is usable for frequency regulation.[4]

Boiling water reactors

Boiling water reactors (BWR) and Advanced Boiling Water Reactors can use a combination of control rods and the speed
of recirculation water flow to quickly reduce their power level down to under 60% of rated power, making them useful for
overnight load-following. In markets such as Chicago, Illinois where half of the local utility's fleet is BWRs, it is common
to load-follow (although less economic to do so).

Pressurized water reactors

Pressurized water reactors (PWR) use a chemical shim in the moderator/coolant (see nuclear reactor technology) to
control power level, and so normally do not load follow. (In most PWRs, control rods are either fully withdrawn or fully
inserted - variable control is difficult, partly due to the large bundle sizes.)

In France, however, nuclear power plants use load following. French PWRs use "grey" control rods made of boron steel, in
order to replace chemical shim, without introducing a large perturbation of the power distribution. These plants have the
capability to make power changes between 30% and 100% of rated power, with a slope of 5% of rated power per minute.
Their licensing permits them to respond very quickly to the grid requirements.

The infirm or unreliable secondary power from the renewable energy such as solar and wind power plants can be used to
follow the load or stabilise the grid frequency with the help of battery storage units economically.[5] When the grid
frequency is below the desired or rated value, the power being generated (if any) and the stored battery power is fed to the
grid to raise the grid frequency. When the grid frequency is above the desired or rated value, the power being generated is
fed or surplus grid power is drawn (in case cheaply available) to the battery units for energy storage. The grid frequency
keeps on fluctuating 50 to 100 times in a day above and below the rated value depending on the type of load encountered
and the type of generating plants in the electrical grid.[6] Recently, the cost of battery units, solar power plants, etc have
come down drastically to utilise secondary power for power grid stabilisation as an on line spinning reserve.[7]

Grid energy storage

Relative cost of electricity generated by different sources
Economics of new nuclear power plants (for more cost comparisons)
Base load power plant
Peaking power plant

1. Renewable and Efficient Electric Power Systems By Gilbert M. Masters p. 140

2. "page 13, Operational Performance Report for the Month of March 2015, NLDC" (PDF). Retrieved 25 April 2015.
3. "Load acceptance criteria for hydro electric power plants, CEA, India" (PDF). Retrieved 25 August 2014.
4. Nuclear Development, June 2011, page 10 from http://www.oecd-nea.org/
5. "Big step for energy programme: Storage battery at 750-MW Andhra Pradesh solar plant likely". 10 February 2016.
6. "Frequency Profile, NLDC, GoI". Retrieved 6 August 2015.
7. Russell, Jon (April 30, 2015). "Teslas $3,000 Powerwall Will Let Households Run Entirely On Solar Energy".

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Load_following_power_plant&oldid=705792205"

Categories: Power station technology

This page was last modified on 19 February 2016, at 16:20.

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using
this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.