Analysis of Conventional Steam Power Plant through Exergy, Combined Pinch-Exergy and Thermoeconomic Methods

Exergy, combined pinch-exergy and exergoeconomic analysis are useful methods to evaluation of process system and thermal power plant. In this paper, exergetic, thermoeconomic and combined pinch-exergy analyses have been performed for 315-MW Ramin steam power plant as real case study. The simulation of this plant has been performed in Steam Pro 13.0 simulator. Mass and energy conservation laws were applied to each component of the system. An Excel Add-in called Steam Pro link has been developed to calculate the exergy of each stream from Steam Pro simulation results in Excel environment. Furthermore, combined pinch and exergy representation is applied to analysis of power plant. Also, the Matlab code has been provided to draw energy level curves that show combined pinch-exergy analysis. In addition, exergetic cost for each component and for the whole system was carefully considered. The exergoeconomic model, which represented the productive structure of the system considered, was used to visualize the cost formation process and the productive interaction between components. The Matlab code has been provided for thermoecomic and energy level analysis.