The Exergy Optimization Analysis of 700°C HUSC Steam Turbine Using a Echelon Cycle System

Abstract

700°C HUSC technology is considered as the next generation of more efficiently coal-fired power generation technology, the heat rate of which can be reduced by more than 8% on the basis of current ultra-supercritical units. That means there is a huge energy saving benefits. With the main steam / reheat steam temperature increasing from 600°C / 620 °C to 700°C/ 720°C, the temperature of extraction steam increases dramatically, especially the first extraction stage after reheater, the temperature of which will increase to 630 ∼ 650 °C. That means a substantial increase in the cost of the initial investment because of the nickel-based material being used in extraction pipe and heaters. With EC system, the extraction steam temperature is reduced sharply because the high temperature extraction steam is moved from the main turbine to a small parallel extraction turbine and the steam source of the small extraction turbine is from the cold reheater. So the highest extraction steam temperature will not exceed 500 °C, and the high temperature risk of heat recovery system will be eliminated completely. In this paper, exergy theory is introduced to analyze the cycle efficiency of the new thermodynamic system and the conventional one. In order to obtain a better 700 °C high ultra-supercritical thermodynamic system solution, GA method is used to optimize the regenerative system parameters to lower the overall heat consumption. The exergy theory is also used to analyze the reason why optimal solution can bring economic benefits. Finally, the feasibility of the entire system project will be analyzed.