Thermal power plant

Seminar
Mechanical engineering S2
Introduction
A thermal power station is a power station in which heat energy is converted to electric power.
In most of the places in the world the turbine is steam-driven. Water is heated, turns into steam
and spins a steam turbine which drives an electrical generator. After it passes through the
turbine, the steam is condensedin a condenser and recycled to where it was heated; this is
known as a Rankine cycle. The greatest variation in the design of thermal power stations is due
to the different heat sources; fossil fueldominates here, although nuclear heat energy and solar
heat energy are also used. Some prefer to use the term energy center because such facilities
convert forms of heat energy into electrical energy.[1]Certain thermal power stations are also
designed to produce heat energy for industrial purposes, or district heating, or desalination of
water, in addition to generating electrical power.

Types of thermal energy

Almost all coal, petroleum, nuclear, geothermal, solar thermal electric, and waste
incineration plants, as well as many natural gas power stations are thermal. Natural
gas is frequently combusted in gas turbinesas well as boilers. The waste heat from a gas
turbine, in the form of hot exhaust gas, can be used to raise steam, by passing this gas
through a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) the steam is then used to drive a
steam turbine in a combined cycle plant that improves overall efficiency. Power stations
burning coal, fuel oil, or natural gas are often called fossil fuel power stations.
Some biomass-fueled thermal power stations have appeared also. Non-nuclear thermal
power stations, particularly fossil-fueled plants, which do not use cogeneration are
sometimes referred to as conventional power stations.
Commercial electric utility power stations are usually constructed on a large scale and
designed for continuous operation. Virtually all Electric power stations use three-
phase electrical generators to produce alternating current (AC) electric power at
a frequency of 50 Hz or 60 Hz. Large companies or institutions may have their own
power stations to supply heating or electricity to their facilities, especially if steam is
created anyway for other purposes. Steam-driven power stations have been used to
drive most ships in most of the 20th century until recently. Steam power stations are
now only used in large nuclear naval ships. Shipboard power stations usually directly
couple the turbine to the ship's propellers through gearboxes. Power stations in such
ships also provide steam to smaller turbines driving electric generators to supply
electricity. Nuclear marine propulsion is, with few exceptions, used only in naval vessels.
There have been many turbo-electric ships in which a steam-driven turbine drives an
electric generator which powers an electric motor for propulsion.
Cogeneration plants, often called combined heat and power (CHP) facilities, produce
both electric power and heat for process heat or space heating, such as steam and hot
water
History:-
The initially developed reciprocating steam enginehas been used to produce mechanical
power since the 18th Century, with notable improvements being made by James Watt.
When the first commercially developed central electrical power stations were
established in 1882 at Pearl Street Station in New York and Holborn Viaduct power
station in London, reciprocating steam engines were used. The development of
the steam turbine in 1884 provided larger and more efficient machine designs for central
generating stations. By 1892 the turbine was considered a better alternative to
reciprocating engines;[2] turbines offered higher speeds, more compact machinery, and
stable speed regulation allowing for parallel synchronous operation of generators on a
common bus. After about 1905, turbines entirely replaced reciprocating engines in large
central power stations.
The largest reciprocating engine-generator sets ever built were completed in 1901 for
the Manhattan Elevated Railway. Each of seventeen units weighed about 500 tons and
was rated 6000 kilowatts; a contemporary turbine set of similar rating would have
weighed about 20% as much.
The direct cost of electric energy produced by a thermal power station is the result of cost of
fuel, capital cost for the plant, operator labour, maintenance, and such factors as ash handling
and disposal. Indirect, social or environmental costs such as the economic value of
environmental impacts, or environmental and health effects of the complete fuel cycle and plant
decommissioning, are not usually assigned to generation costs for thermal stations in utility
practice, but may form part of an environmental impact assessment.

Electricity cost
The direct cost of electric energy produced by a thermal power station is the result of cost of
fuel, capital cost for the plant, operator labour, maintenance, and such factors as ash handling
and disposal. Indirect, social or environmental costs such as the economic value of
environmental impacts, or environmental and health effects of the complete fuel cycle and plant
decommissioning, are not usually assigned to generation costs for thermal stations in utility
practice, but may form part of an environmental impact assessment.
Working diagram