COMBINED OPERATION OF

DIFFERENT POWER PLANTS

ATHUL ALOYSIUS
S7 MECHANICAL
ROLL NO: 28
 INTRODUCTION
Aim of any national economy is to make available maximum amount generating
capacity with the available fund and at cheapest rate.
The most economic generating scheme should be selected in order to supply
power at the lowest cost.
To utilise the different generating facilities efficiently we can combine the
operation of different neighbouring power generation systems in an optimum
manner.
The power plants are established such that
Maximum energy generation Thermal power plant
Nuclear power plant
Utilisation of energy & capacity Hydroelectric power plant

This interconnection between power systems can greatly improve continuity ,

security and integrity provided it is associated with a sound mechanism for
control.
 COMBINED CYCLE POWER PLANT
Most of the simple cycle gas turbine plants used for power generation has an
efficiency averaging under 30 percent.
This means that two-thirds of the latent energy of the fuel ends up wasted.
Much of this wasted energy ends up as thermal energy in the hot exhaust
gases from the combustion process.
To increase the overall efficiency of electric power plants, multiple processes
can be combined to recover and utilize the residual heat energy in hot exhaust
gases
The term combined cycle refers to the combining of multiple
thermodynamic cycles to generate power.
Most commonly simple gas turbine plants are used to modify it to combined
cycle gas turbine plant as they low efficiency in simple cycle operation.
Combined cycle operation employs a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG)
that captures heat from high temperature exhaust gases to produce steam.
This steam is then supplied to a steam turbine to generate additional electric
power.
In combined cycle mode, power plants can achieve electrical efficiencies up to
60 percent.
 ADVANTAGES OF COMBINED CYCLE POWER
PLANT (CCPP)
1. Greater reliability of supply to the consumers.
2. When one of the stations fails to operate the consumers can be fed from
the other stations, thus avoiding complete shut down.
3. The overall cost of the energy per unit of an interconnected system is
less.
4. There is more effective use of transmission line facilities at higher
voltage.
5. Less capital investment required.
6. Less expenses on supervision, operation and maintenance.

7. Spinning reserve required is reduced . (Spinning reserve is any back-up energy

production capacity which is can be made available to a transmission system within ten
minutes notice and can operate continuously for at least two hours once it is brought online)
 LOAD DIVISION BETWEEN POWER STATIONS
Load is the amount of current being drawn by all the components in a
power plant.
The load on a power station varies from time to time due to uncertain
demands of consumers.
The curve which shows the variation of load on the electrical power
station with respect to time is known as load curve
A load duration curve illustrates the variation of a certain load in a
downward form such that the greatest load is plotted in the left and the
smallest one in the right. On the time axis, the time duration for which
each certain load continues during the day is given.
 When the load curve has a very high peak value, it is usually supplied for
two or more power stations by interconnection.
Total load may be divided into two parts.
A. Base Load B. Peak Load
Base load is supplied by one power station and other power station takes
care of the peak load.
In such cases load is economically apportioned to various systems in order
to achieve the overall economy.
If the base load is supplied by steam power station , then it is not very
necessary that the peak load may also be supplied by the steam power
station.
A hydroelectric power station can very well be adopted for supplying the
peak load.
But the selection of power stations for supplying the base load or peak
load is made on the basis of requirements and ability of various power
stations to meet those requirements.
 REQUIREMENTS OF A PLANT SUPPLYING
BASE LOAD
i. Minimum operation cost.
ii. Continuous supply of the load.
iii. Capital cost of plant should be minimum.
iv. Requirement of plant maintenance should be minimum.
v. Plant should be such that it can be easily located near the load centre.
vi. The number of operators required should be minimum.
vii. The spare parts should be readily available.

Taking into view the above requirements , let us now consider various
plants for their suitability to meet the base load
Hydroelectric power plants:
Operating cost is minimum.
Maintenance cost is lower.
Initial cost is high.
Cant be located near to load.

Steam power plants:

Capital cost is more.
Can be located near to load centre.
Maintenance requirement is slightly higher.

Diesel power plants:

Due to limited generating capacity, it is not used as base load plant.

Nuclear power plant:

Initial cost is high.
Limited availability of fuel, not favoured.
Whenever they are constructed they are used as base load plants due to
constant supply.
 REQUIREMENTS OF A PLANT SUPPLYING
PEAK LOAD
i. Low operating cost
ii. Minimum capital cost
iii. The plant should be capable of being started from cold conditions within
minimum time.
iv. In case of the emergency the plant should have the capacity to
withstand the peak load for sometime.
v. It must have quick response to change in load.

Taking into view the above requirements , let us now consider various
plants for their suitability to meet the peak load.
Hydroelectric plants:
It can be easily started from cold conditions.
No fuel required , so when ever the output of the hydro-electric station is to
be utilised it can be used as peak station also.
Nuclear power plants:
They are not used as peak load plants.
Diesel power plants:
Easily start from cold conditions.
Number of auxiliaries required is limited, so less maintenance.
They have good overload capacity.
They have high thermal efficiency therefore less operating cost than steam
power plants.
THANKS