EXERGETIC ANALYSIS OF SOLAR AIDED COAL FIRED (210MW) THERMAL POWER PLANT

This article deals with comparative energetic and exergetic analysis for evaluation of coal fired thermal power plant and solar thermal aided coal fired thermal power plant. In this analysis assuming 8h/day solar energy is available, remaining 16 hrs, SAFWH can be supplied by solar thermal storage for 8hr duration. An instantaneous increase in power generation capacity of about 35% is observed by substituting turbine bleed streams to all the low pressure and high pressure feedwater heaters with SAFWH. Coal consumption 3.5% is increased for reheat of the steam by replacement of high pressure feed water heaters with SAFWH. Energetic efficiencies of solar aided coal fired thermal power plant appear high as compared to solar alone thermal power plant and low as compared to coal fired thermal power plants. Furthermore, for a SAFWH, it is found that the land area requirement is 3.3 hectare /MW for large scale solar thermal storage system running the plant for 24hrs.