THERMOECONOMIC OPTIMIZATION METHOD AD DESIGN TOOL IN GAS-STEAM COMBINED PLANT REALIZATION

Abstract In modern power plants design, not only high performances but also low capital investments have to be assured so that the final product proposed on the market could be competitive. Starting from this concept, in this work, we have realized a tool for a thermoeconomic evaluation and optimization of thermal power plants which could give solutions to problems connected with the design of real systems. The model, using three programs and a set of cost correlations (obtained from collaboration with Nuovo Pignone-General Electric), can estimate the realization costs of a combined power plant as a function of the constructive and operation parameters. A test to verify the capacity of our model has been performed by simulating an existing plant. The results seem very good, and this tool will be soon used also in the industry.