Fuel For Combined Cycle Power Plants
The turbines used in Combined Cycle Plants are commonly fueled with natural gas. Global natural gas reserves were expected to be fully consumed by 2070, however the improvement in shale gas extraction has increased gas supplies and reserves dramatically. Because of this fact, it is becoming the fuel of choice for an increasing amount of private investors and consumers because it is more versatile than coal or oil and can be used in 90% of energy applications. Chile which once depended on hydro-power for 70% of its electricity supply, is now boosting its gas supplies to reduce reliance on its drought afflicted hydro dams. Similarly China is tapping its gas reserves to reduce reliance on coal, which is currently burned to generate 80% of the country’s electricity supply.
Where the extension of a gas pipeline is impractical or cannot be economically justified, electricity needs in remote areas can be met with small scale Combined Cycle Plants, using renewable fuels. Instead of natural gas, Combined Cycle Plants can be filled with biogas derived from agricultural and forestry waste, which is often readily available in rural areas.
Combined cycle plants are usually powered by natural gas, although fuel oil, synthesis gas or other fuels can be used. The supplementary fuel may be natural gas, fuel oil, or coal. Biofuels can also be used. Integrated solar combined cycle power stations combine the energy harvested from solar radiation with another fuel to cut fuel costs and environmental impact. The first such system to come online is Yazd power plant, Iran and more are under construction at Hassi R'mel, Algeria and Ain Beni Mathar, Morocco. Next generation nuclear power plants are also on the drawing board which will take advantage of the higher temperature range made available by the Brayton top cycle, as well as the increase in thermal efficiency offered by a Rankine bottoming cycle.
Low-Grade Fuel for Turbines: Gas turbines burn mainly natural gas and light oil. Crude oil, residual, and some distillates contain corrosive components and as such require fuel treatment equipment. In addition, ash deposits from these fuels result in gas turbine deratings of up to 15 percent. They may still be economically attractive fuels however, particularly in combined-cycle plants.
Sodium and potassium are removed from residual, crude and heavy distillates by a water washing procedure. A simpler and less expensive purification system will do the same job for light crude and light distillates. A magnesium additive system may also be needed to reduce the corrosive effects if vanadium is present. Fuels requiring such treatment must have a separate fuel-treatment plant and a system of accurate fuel monitoring to assure reliable, low-maintenance operation of gas turbines.
Read more about this topic: Combined Cycle
Famous quotes containing the words fuel, combined, cycle, power and/or plants:
“I had an old axe which nobody claimed, with which by spells in winter days, on the sunny side of the house, I played about the stumps which I had got out of my bean-field. As my driver prophesied when I was plowing, they warmed me twice,—once while I was splitting them, and again when they were on the fire, so that no fuel could give out more heat. As for the axe,... if it was dull, it was at least hung true.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“You do not become a “dissident” just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower.”
—Robert M. Pirsig (b. 1928)
“Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.”
—Bible: New Testament, 1 Corinthians 3:7-9.