Methodology

The power plant and capture process were modelled using the Aspen Plus® V8.4 processing
modelling software. The steam cycleperformance and simple heat integration were calculated
from the grand composite curve (Harkin et al., 2012). The gas turbine modelled was a combined
cycle Alstom GT26 (Alstom, 2007). Gas turbine performance is shown in Table 1. A simplified
flow sheet for the gas turbine with PCC-CCS is shown in
Figure 1.

as Turbine

ISO rating (MW) 288

Exhaust Gas Flow (kg/s) 650

Exhaust Gas Temp (°C) 614

Steam Turbine

Power Out (MW) 157

HP Pressure/Temp (bar/°C) 135.3/565

MP Pressure/Temp (bar/°C) 28/565

LP Pressure/Temp (bar/°C) 4.74/287

The detailed Aspen model was then used to produce a surrogate model (SUMO) (Gorissen et al.,
2010), which takes the inputs to the Aspen simulation and uses an artificial neural network to
generate an empirical formula for the simulation outputs. The SUMO is used to reduce CPU time
for multiple simulations runs to aid the MOO. A comparison of the SUMO model to the Aspen
simulation is provided in Figure 2.

The MOO is performed using the Genetic Algorithm code NSGA-II developed by Deb et al.
(2002) and adapted for use in Microsoft Excel® by Sharma et al. (2012). MOO allows for the
simultaneous optimisation of profitability, defined by Net Present Value (NPV) and the capture
rate.
The condensing steam cycle is shown diagrammatically in Figure 22.8. The fuel is fired in a
boiler which converts the heat released from combustion to steam at high pressure and
temperature. This steam is then expanded through a turbine for generation of electrical power.

Exhaust steam from the turbine is condensed in a heat exchanger and then returned via the feed
pumps to the boiler. The associated Rankine Cycle is illustrated in Figure 22.9.
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The efficiency of the cycle, ignoring work done by the boiler feed pumps, is given by change in
enthalpy as follows:

Efficiencyundefined=(h1-h2)(h1-h3)

and h1 to h2 represents the ideal isentropic expansion process in the turbine. However, in
practice, because of irreversibilities, this is less than unity.
This efficiency can be improved by the use of a feed heating cycle whereby bled steam can be
taken from the turbine after certain stages of expansion and then used to raise the feedwater
temperature via use of feed heat exchangers. By such means the feedwater temperature, before
entry to the boiler, is increased, thereby increasing the efficiency as the bled system is condensed
by transfer of heat to the working fluid within the cycle, so reducing condenser heat rejection.

Large power stations use complex feed heating systems before the boiler feed pumps (LP) and
after the boiler feed pumps (HP) which can give high overall thermal efficiencies of 39%.
However, for the smaller machine it becomes uneconomic to consider multiple bleeds from the
turbine, and the final choice is dictated by the extra cost for the additional complexity against
lower running costs due to increased efficiency. As a minimum, a contact type de-aerator is often
employed which would extract a small bleed of around 2–3 bar from the turbine.
4 Modelling the steam power plant
Mathematical modeling of the steam cycle is based on conservation of mass and energy
principles. Eq.(1) and Eq.(2) describes the mass and energy balance respectively.