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"Power plant" redirects here. For other uses, see Power plant (disambiguation).
For other uses, see Power station (disambiguation).
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Contents
1 History
2 Thermal power stations
2.1 Classification
2.1.1 By heat source
2.1.2 By prime mover
2.1.3 By duty
2.2 Cooling towers
2.3 Once-through cooling systems
3 Power from renewable energy
3.1 Hydroelectric power station
3.2 Solar
3.3 Wind
3.4 Marine
3.5 Osmosis
3.6 Biomass
4 Storage power stations
4.1 Pumped storage
5 Typical power output
6 Operations
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
History
In 1870 a hydroelectric power station was designed and built by Lord Armstrong at
Cragside, England. It used water from lakes on his estate to power Siemens dynamos.
The electricity supplied power to lights, heating, produced hot water, ran an
elevator as well as labor-saving devices and farm buildings.[1]
In the early 1870s Belgian inventor Z�nobe Gramme invented a generator powerful
enough to produce power on a commercial scale for industry.[2]
In the autumn of 1882, a central station providing public power was built in
Godalming, England. It was proposed after the town failed to reach an agreement on
the rate charged by the gas company, so the town council decided to use
electricity. It used hydroelectric power for street lighting and household
lighting. The system was not a commercial success and the town reverted to gas.[3]
In 1882 the world's first coal-fired public power station, the Edison Electric
Light Station, was built in London, a project of Thomas Edison organized by Edward
Johnson. A Babcock & Wilcox boiler powered a 125-horsepower steam engine that drove
a 27-ton generator. This supplied electricity to premises in the area that could be
reached through the culverts of the viaduct without digging up the road, which was
the monopoly of the gas companies. The customers included the City Temple and the
Old Bailey. Another important customer was the Telegraph Office of the General Post
Office, but this could not be reached though the culverts. Johnson arranged for the
supply cable to be run overhead, via Holborn Tavern and Newgate.[4]
In September 1882 in New York, the Pearl Street Station was established by Edison
to provide electric lighting in the lower Manhattan Island area. The station ran
until destroyed by fire in 1890. The station used reciprocating steam engines to
turn direct-current generators. Because of the DC distribution, the service area
was small, limited by voltage drop in the feeders. In 1886 George Westinghouse
began building an alternating current system that used a transformer to step up
voltage for long-distance transmission and then stepped it back down for indoor
lighting, a more efficient and less expensive system which is similar to modern
system. The War of Currents eventually resolved in favor of AC distribution and
utilization, although some DC systems persisted to the end of the 20th century. DC
systems with a service radius of a mile (kilometer) or so were necessarily smaller,
less efficient of fuel consumption, and more labor-intensive to operate than much
larger central AC generating stations.
AC systems used a wide range of frequencies depending on the type of load; lighting
load using higher frequencies, and traction systems and heavy motor load systems
preferring lower frequencies. The economics of central station generation improved
greatly when unified light and power systems, operating at a common frequency, were
developed. The same generating plant that fed large industrial loads during the
day, could feed commuter railway systems during rush hour and then serve lighting
load in the evening, thus improving the system load factor and reducing the cost of
electrical energy overall. Many exceptions existed, generating stations were
dedicated to power or light by the choice of frequency, and rotating frequency
changers and rotating converters were particularly common to feed electric railway
systems from the general lighting and power network.
Throughout the first few decades of the 20th century central stations became
larger, using higher steam pressures to provide greater efficiency, and relying on
interconnections of multiple generating stations to improve reliability and cost.
High-voltage AC transmission allowed hydroelectric power to be conveniently moved
from distant waterfalls to city markets. The advent of the steam turbine in central
station service, around 1906, allowed great expansion of generating capacity.
Generators were no longer limited by the power transmission of belts or the
relatively slow speed of reciprocating engines, and could grow to enormous sizes.
For example, Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti planned what would have been the largest
reciprocating steam engine ever built for a proposed new central station, but
scrapped the plans when turbines became available in the necessary size. Building
power systems out of central stations required combinations of engineering skill
and financial acumen in equal measure. Pioneers of central station generation
include George Westinghouse and Samuel Insull in the United States, Ferranti and
Charles Hesterman Merz in UK, and many others.
The efficiency of a thermal power cycle is limited by the maximum working fluid
temperature produced. The efficiency is not directly a function of the fuel used.
For the same steam conditions, coal-, nuclear- and gas power plants all have the
same theoretical efficiency. Overall, if a system is on constantly (base load) it
will be more efficient than one that is used intermittently (peak load). Steam
turbines generally operate at higher efficiency when operated at full capacity.
Besides use of reject heat for process or district heating, one way to improve
overall efficiency of a power plant is to combine two different thermodynamic
cycles in a combined cycle plant. Most commonly, exhaust gases from a gas turbine
are used to generate steam for a boiler and a steam turbine. The combination of a
"top" cycle and a "bottom" cycle produces higher overall efficiency than either
cycle can attain alone.
Classification
Modular block overview of a power station. Dashed lines show special additions like
combined cycle and cogeneration or optional storage.
St. Clair Power Plant, a large coal-fired generating station in Michigan, United
States
Base load power plants run nearly continually to provide that component of system
load that doesn't vary during a day or week. Baseload plants can be highly
optimized for low fuel cost, but may not start or stop quickly during changes in
system load. Examples of base-load plants would include large modern coal-fired and
nuclear generating stations, or hydro plants with a predictable supply of water.
Peaking power plants meet the daily peak load, which may only be for one or two
hours each day. While their incremental operating cost is always higher than base
load plants, they are required to ensure security of the system during load peaks.
Peaking plants include simple cycle gas turbines and sometimes reciprocating
internal combustion engines, which can be started up rapidly when system peaks are
predicted. Hydroelectric plants may also be designed for peaking use.
Load following power plants can economically follow the variations in the daily and
weekly load, at lower cost than peaking plants and with more flexibility than
baseload plants.
Non-dispatchable plants include such sources as wind and solar energy; while their
long-term contribution to system energy supply is predictable, on a short-term
(daily or hourly) base their energy must be used as available since generation
cannot be deferred. Contractual arrangements ("take or pay") with independent power
producers or system interconnections to other networks may be effectively non-
dispatchable.
Cooling towers
Main article: Cooling tower
In areas with restricted water use, a dry cooling tower or directly air-cooled
radiators may be necessary, since the cost or environmental consequences of
obtaining make-up water for evaporative cooling would be prohibitive. These coolers
have lower efficiency and higher energy consumption to drive fans, compared to a
typical wet, evaporative cooling tower.
A further environmental impact is that aquatic organisms which adapt to the warmer
discharge water may be injured if the plant shuts down in cold weather.
In recent years, recycled wastewater, or grey water, has been used in cooling
towers. The Calpine Riverside and the Calpine Fox power stations in Wisconsin as
well as the Calpine Mankato power station in Minnesota are among these facilities.
Solar
Main article: Solar power
A solar photovoltaic power plant converts sunlight into direct current electricity
using the photoelectric effect. Inverters change the direct current into
alternating current for connection to the electrical grid. This type of plant does
not use rotating machines for energy conversion.
Solar thermal power plants are another type of solar power plant. They use either
parabolic troughs or heliostats to direct sunlight onto a pipe containing a heat
transfer fluid, such as oil. The heated oil is then used to boil water into steam,
which turns a turbine that drives an electrical generator. The central tower type
of solar thermal power plant uses hundreds or thousands of mirrors, depending on
size, to direct sunlight onto a receiver on top of a tower. Again, the heat is used
to produce steam to turn turbines that drive electrical generators.
Wind
Main article: Wind power
Marine
Main article: Marine energy
Marine energy or marine power (also sometimes referred to as ocean energy or ocean
power) refers to the energy carried by ocean waves, tides, salinity, and ocean
temperature differences. The movement of water in the world�s oceans creates a vast
store of kinetic energy, or energy in motion. This energy can be harnessed to
generate electricity to power homes, transport and industries.
The term marine energy encompasses both wave power � power from surface waves, and
tidal power � obtained from the kinetic energy of large bodies of moving water.
Offshore wind power is not a form of marine energy, as wind power is derived from
the wind, even if the wind turbines are placed over water.
The oceans have a tremendous amount of energy and are close to many if not most
concentrated populations. Ocean energy has the potential of providing a substantial
amount of new renewable energy around the world.[14]
Osmosis
Biomass
Pumped storage
Main article: Pumped-storage hydroelectricity
The worlds largest form of storage for excess electricity, pumped-storage is a
reversible hydroelectric plant. They are a net consumer of energy but provide
storage for any source of electricity, effectively smoothing peaks and troughs in
electricity supply and demand. Pumped storage plants typically use "spare"
electricity during off peak periods to pump water from a lower reservoir to an
upper reservoir. Because the pumping takes place "off peak", electricity is less
valuable than at peak times. This less valuable "spare" electricity comes from
uncontrolled wind power and base load power plants such as coal, nuclear and
geothermal, which still produce power at night even though demand is very low.
During daytime peak demand, when electricity prices are high, the storage is used
for peaking power, where water in the upper reservoir is allowed to flow back to a
lower reservoir through a turbine and generator. Unlike coal power stations, which
can take more than 12 hours to start up from cold, a hydroelectric generator can be
brought into service in a few minutes, ideal to meet a peak load demand. Two
substantial pumped storage schemes are in South Africa, Palmiet Pumped Storage
Scheme and another in the Drakensberg, Ingula Pumped Storage Scheme.
Many of the largest operational onshore wind farms are located in the USA. As of
2011, the Roscoe Wind Farm is the second largest onshore wind farm in the world,
producing 781.5 MW of power, followed by the Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center (735.5
MW). As of July 2013, the London Array in United Kingdom is the largest offshore
wind farm in the world at 630 MW, followed by Thanet Offshore Wind Project in
United Kingdom at 300 MW.
As of 2015, the largest photovoltaic (PV) power plants in the world are led by
Longyangxia Dam Solar Park in China, rated at 850 megawatts.
Solar thermal power stations in the U.S. have the following output:
The country's largest solar facility at Kramer Junction has an output of 354 MW
The Blythe Solar Power Project planned production is estimated at 485 MW
The Koeberg Nuclear Power Station in South Africa has a rated capacity of 1860
megawatts.
The coal-fired Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station in the UK has a rated capacity of 2
gigawatts.
The Aswan Dam hydro-electric plant in Egypt has a capacity of 2.1 gigawatts.
The Three Gorges Dam hydro-electric plant in China has a capacity of 22.5
gigawatts.
Gas turbine power plants can generate tens to hundreds of megawatts. Some examples:
The Indian Queens simple-cycle, or open cycle gas turbine (OCGT), peaking power
station in Cornwall UK, with a single gas turbine is rated 140 megawatts.
The Medway Power Station, a combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power station in
Kent, UK with two gas turbines and one steam turbine, is rated 700 megawatts.[15]
The rated capacity of a power station is nearly the maximum electrical power that
that power station can produce. Some power plants are run at almost exactly their
rated capacity all the time, as a non-load-following base load power plant, except
at times of scheduled or unscheduled maintenance.
However, many power plants usually produce much less power than their rated
capacity.
In some cases a power plant produces much less power than its rated capacity
because it uses an intermittent energy source. Operators try to pull maximum
available power from such power plants, because their marginal cost is practically
zero, but the available power varies widely�in particular, it may be zero during
heavy storms at night.
In some cases operators deliberately produce less power for economic reasons. The
cost of fuel to run a load following power plant may be relatively high, and the
cost of fuel to run a peaking power plant is even higher�they have relatively high
marginal costs. Operators keep power plants turned off ("operational reserve") or
running at minimum fuel consumption[citation needed] ("spinning reserve") most of
the time. Operators feed more fuel into load following power plants only when the
demand rises above what lower-cost plants (i.e., intermittent and base load plants)
can produce, and then feed more fuel into peaking power plants only when the demand
rises faster than the load following power plants can follow.
Operations
See also
icon Energy portal
Cogeneration
Cooling tower
Cost of electricity by source
District heating
Electricity generation
Environmental impact of electricity generation
Flue-gas stack
Fossil-fuel power station
Geothermal electricity
Gravitation water vortex power plant
Grid-tied electrical system mini-power plants
List of largest power stations in the world
List of power stations
List of thermal power station failures
Plant efficiency
Unit commitment problem
Virtual power plant
References
"Hydro-electricity restored to historic Northumberland home". BBC News.
Thompson, Silvanus Phillips (1888). Dynamo-electric Machinery: A Manual for
Students of Electrotechnics. London: E. & F. N. Spon. p. 140.
McNeil, Ian (1996). An Encyclopaedia of the History of Technology ([New ed.].
ed.). London: Routledge. p. 369. ISBN 978-0-415-14792-7.
Jack Harris (14 January 1982), "The electricity of Holborn", New Scientist
Nuclear Power Plants Information, by International Atomic Energy Agency
Wiser, Wendell H. (2000). Energy resources: occurrence, production, conversion,
use. Birkh�user. p. 190. ISBN 978-0-387-98744-6.
SWEB's Pocket Power Stations Archived 4 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine.
J.C. Hensley (Editor) (2006). Cooling Tower Fundamentals (2nd ed.). SPX Cooling
Technologies.
Beychok, Milton R. (1967). Aqueous Wastes from Petroleum and Petrochemical Plants
(4th ed.). John Wiley and Sons. LCCN 67019834. (Includes cooling tower material
balance for evaporation emissions and blowdown effluents. Available in many
university libraries)
Riverkeeper, Inc. v. U.S. EPA, 358 F.3d 174, 181 (2d Cir. 2004) ("A single power
plant might impinge a million adult fish in just a three-week period, or entrain
some 3 to 4 billion smaller fish and shellfish in a year, destabilizing wildlife
populations in the surrounding ecosystem.").
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC (May 2014). "Final
Regulations to Establish Requirements for Cooling Water Intake Structures at
Existing Facilities." Fact sheet. Document no. EPA-821-F-14-001.
McGeehan, Patrick (2015-05-12). "Fire Prompts Renewed Calls to Close the Indian
Point Nuclear Plant". New York Times.
American Association for the Advancement of Science. AAAS Annual Meeting 17 - 21
Feb 2011, Washington DC. "Sustainable or Not? Impacts and Uncertainties of Low-
Carbon Energy Technologies on Water." Dr Evangelos Tzimas, European Commission, JRC
Institute for Energy, Petten, Netherlands.
Carbon Trust, Future Marine Energy. Results of the Marine Energy Challenge: Cost
competitiveness and growth of wave and tidal stream energy, January 2006
CCGT Plants in South England[dead link], by Power Plants Around the World
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Power plants.
Identification System for Power Stations (KKS)
Power station diagram
Largest Power Plants in the World
Power Plant Operators, Distributors, and Dispatchers (Occupational Outlook
Handbook)
Database of carbon emissions of power plants worldwide (Carbon Monitoring For
Action: CARMA)
Power Plants in Iceland, Photogallery by islandsmyndir.is Iceland uses geothermal
and hydroelectric energy.
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Electricity delivery
Concepts
Availability factor Automatic Generation Control Backfeeding Base load Black start
Capacity factor Demand factor Droop speed control Economic dispatch Electric power
Demand management EROEI Fault Home energy storage Grid storage Intermittency Load
factor Load following Nameplate capacity Peak demand Power quality Power-flow study
Repowering Utility frequency Variability
Sources
Nonrenewable
Coal Fossil fuel power station Natural gas Petroleum Nuclear Oil shale
Renewable
Biomass Biofuel Geothermal Hydro Marine Current Osmotic Thermal Tidal Wave Solar
Wind
Generation
AC power Cogeneration Combined cycle Cooling tower Induction generator Micro CHP
Microgeneration Rankine cycle Three-phase electric power Virtual power plant
Transmission
and distribution
Blackout (Rolling blackout) Brownout Demand response Distributed generation Dynamic
demand Electric power distribution Electrical busbar system Electric power system
Electric power transmission Electrical grid Electrical interconnector High-voltage
direct current High-voltage shore connection Load management Mains electricity by
country Power line Power station Power storage Pumped hydro Smart grid Substation
Super grid Transformer Transmission system operator (TSO) Transmission tower
Utility pole
Protective
devices
Arc-fault circuit interrupter Earth leakage circuit breaker Residual-current device
(GFI) Power-system protection Protective relay Digital protective relay Sulfur
hexafluoride circuit breaker
Economics
and policies
Carbon offset Cost of electricity by source Ecotax Energy subsidies Feed-in tariff
Fossil-fuel phase-out Net metering Pigovian tax Renewable Energy Certificates
Renewable energy payments Renewable energy policy Spark/Dark/Quark/Bark spread
Statistics and Production
List of electricity sectors Electric energy consumption
Categories Electric power distribution Electricity economics Power station
technology Portals Energy Renewable energy Sustainable development
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GND: 4032728-0 NARA: 10644795 NDL: 00563023
Categories: Chemical process engineeringPower stations
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