Development of a model efficiency improvement for the designing of feedwater heaters network in thermal power plants

Abstract

Thermal power plants play a significant role in generating power, electricity, and energy consumption in the world, especially in developing countries. Therefore, the energy analysis of these power plants is very useful to increase the efficiency of systems and reduce energy consumption. One of the components of power plants that play a great role in energy consumption and recovery is the feedwater heater. In this study, a design method-based pinch technology for feedwater heaters of a coal power plant is presented. This method is used to reduce the irreversibility of heat transfer in feedwater heaters in this power plant. This study is performed on six feedwater heaters, which are similar in pairs. The results of this method show that this method is feasible for this system, and the results also show that the implementation of this method with a Pinch range of 10 °C indicated a deficit hot utility of about 48.54 MW. Also, the amount of power plant efficiency improvement is 12.12%, and according to the Pinch method, the energy price of the power plant can be reduced by about 125,489 $/year.