Energy Efficiency and Audit of Captive Power Plant

Abstract

Coal fired thermal power plants generate major portion of India's electricity. In a typical thermal power plant the raw coal is crushed and pulverized in a mill to a size finer than a face powder. The primary air supply dries and transports the coal into the boiler furnace. The coal burns in to the furnace to generate superheated steam which drives a turbine connected to an alternator to generate electricity. This study examines the factors responsible for the efficiency of the Captive power plants (CPPs). The purpose of the study is to arrive at the efficiency parameters for the CPPs as a whole and also various components of the CPPs. The term efficiency as defined solely for power generation only considers the useful electrical output to effective heat input to the power plant. But much of the energy content of the available energy source is wasted by inefficiencies the energy conversion and distribution processes. So it is necessary to find the efficiency of all the equipments. Modelling is needed for understanding and predicting the behaviour and characteristics of thermal systems. This thesis mainly focuses on the important components of a power plant which are boiler, turbine. The development of these simulations in LabVIEW, it is assumed that there are no feed heaters when developing this model. The model was validated with a real power plant generating 600 KW. A sensitivity analysis was implemented in order to find the most sensitive inputs and outputs for the energy production.