Abstract:
The rising cost of energy and environmental concerns have led the power plant to search for techniques of reducing energy consumption in thermal operations. In this research, pinch analysis was applied to steam thermal power station (case study: kosti thermal power station) to target for the energy requirements of the process. The objective of this study is to apply pinch technology for optimizing the performance of plant because Pinch technology presents a simple methodology for systematically analyzing for Power Plant Processes and the surrounding utility systems with the help of the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics.
From the Pinch analysis performed, the Composite Curves revealed that, at a minimum temperature difference of 10°C, the minimum cooling and heating utility requirements of the plant studied were determined as being 185.7 KW and 53050.3 KW respectively, with a pinch temperature at 47˚C. It was observed that using the technique 141538.7KW of energy could be recovered through process to process heat exchange. It is recommended that results from this study could be used in the design or retrofit of a heat exchanger network of the plant for improved energy efficiency. Considerations can also be made for other values of ΔTmin.
