What is a Combined Cycle Power Plant?

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Anup Kumar Dey

What is a Combined Cycle Power Plant?

A Combined cycle power plant is a highly efficient power generation unit. They are the
cleanest and highly efficient. The process of combined cycle power generation recovers the
temperature from the exhaust gas and utilizes that heat in power generation. It is believed
that they produce around 50 percent more electricity from the same fuel consumption. So
combined cycle power plants are economic as compared the conventional ones.

Introduction of Combined Cycle Power Plant

In a combined cycle power plant (Fig. 1), electricity is produced by two turbines; a gas
turbine, and a steam turbine. The gas turbine is operated by the combustion products of the
fuel (Brayton cycle), while the steam turbine (Rankine cycle) is operated by the steam
generated by HRSG from the heat content of the exhaust gases leaving the gas turbine.

The name combined cycle power plant is provided because the gas turbine operates
according to the Brayton cycle and the steam system operates according to the Rankine
cycle. So, two cycles generate power combinedly. Fig. 1 below shows a schematic overview
of a combined cycle power plant.

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 Fig. 1: Schematic of Combined Cycle power plant

The gas turbine cycle works in the high-temperature region. Once the work is produced by
the Brayton Cycle, the exhaust heat is routed to the nearby steam turbine for producing extra
power by the Rankine cycle. Fig. 2 below shows both Brayton and Rankine Cycle.

Fig. 2: Brayton & Rankine cycle for Combined Cycle Power Plant

Components of a Combined Cycle Power Plant

The main components of a combined cycle power plant are

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 a Gas Turbine (GT)
an HRSG or heat recovery steam generator
a Steam Turbine and
other accessories or associated items.

Gas Turbine
A gas turbine in a combined cycle power plant converts natural gas or fluid into mechanical
energy. A simple gas turbine has three sections: a compressor, a combustor, and a power
turbine. It operates on the Brayton cycle principal. The working philosophy of gas turbines is
simple. The compressed air is mixed with fuel and then burned under constant pressure.
Then the hot gas flows through the turbine to produce work.

HRSG or Heat Recovery Steam Generator

The HRSG (Fig. 3) receives the exhaust gases from the Gas Turbine discharge. The exhaust
gas, flowing in the counter flow direction with respect to the steam/water coils, cools down by
transferring heat to steam/water. The flue gas temperature at the stack is about 110°C.
Lower temperatures 93°C can be used if the fuel gas is very clean and sulfur-free.

The HRSG is similar to a heat exchanger in which the shell side carries the flue gas and the
tube side carries steam or water. It also has the characteristics of a boiler because there are
steam drums, where the generated steam is separated from boiling water before entering the
superheaters.

The HRSG can be horizontal or vertical, according to the direction of the flue gas path. The
horizontal HRSGs are most common. The vertical ones mainly are limited to installations
where space is very tight.

HRSG Pressure and Temperature Levels

The HRSG can have one, two, or three pressure levels according to the size of the plant.

For plant sizes of 200–400 MW, the pressure levels used are HP, IP, and LP.
Plants down to 30–60 MW usually have two pressure levels (HP and LP),
Smaller units only have one pressure level. Sometimes, with three pressure levels, the
LP section produces the steam needed for deaeration only.
The following tube banks are used for each pressure level (starting from the GT
exhaust): 1) steam superheaters, 2) evaporator, and 3) economizer.

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 Fig. 3: HRSG

HRSG Design Features

Sometimes empty module is inserted in the flue gas ducts of large HRSGs where flue gas
temperature is 350–380°C, which can be used in the future for the installation of a selective
catalytic reduction unit for further NOx abatement. Sometimes, a spool piece for the future
addition of an oxidation catalyst for CO abatement is included for the same purpose as the
SCR and located in the same position.

The pressure drop across the HRSG on the flue gas path is in the range of 200–375 mm
water column. This pressure drop is the back-pressure of the GT and inuences its
generated power and efciency by 1 and 2%, respectively. The HRSGs are provided with a
set of motor-operated valves that are installed in the steam and water lines.

The feedwater inlet lines to the economizers are also provided with on/off shut-off valves.
Having these shut-off valves allows the “bottling in” of the HRSG by closing all inlet and
outlet lines, thereby to keep the boiler pressurized when the shut-down period is expected to
be short. Additional motor-operated valves are used to remotely and automatically operate
the drains in the superheaters.

The HRSG also includes a pressurized blow-down tank and an atmospheric blow-off tank
and is also equipped with chemical injection pumps to maintain the water and steam
chemistry specifications. The HRSG is also equipped with nitrogen connections for purging
(dry lay-up) to prevent corrosion in case of long shut-down periods.

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Steam Turbine
Steam turbines in a combined cycle power plant extract energy from the steam and convert it
to work, which rotates the shaft of the turbine. The amount of energy that the steam turbine
extracts from the steam depends on the enthalpy drop across the machine.

The enthalpy of the steam is a function of its temperature and pressure. As inlet and outlet
temperature and pressure are known, one can use a Mollier diagram to determine the
amount of energy available. Steam turbine (Fig. 4) sizes range from a few kilowatts to over
1000 megawatts.

Operating Control modes of Steam Turbine

Steam Turbine operates in three control modes:

Fixed pressure mode– Below 50% load, which corresponds to about 50% of the live
steam pressure, the steam turbine will be operated in a fixed pressure mode. In this
mode of operation, pressure from the steam generator remains constant and is
controlled by main control In case the steam turbine is not taking all produced steam,
the pressure of a steam generator is controlled by the bypass valves.
Sliding pressure mode– When the 50% load is reached the main control valve is fully
open. With increasing gas turbine loads the steam turbine will be operated in sliding
pressure mode. In this case, the live steam pressure varies proportionally with the
steam flow.
Load control– when the generator is synchronized to the grid, its frequency is
governed by the grid. The turbine controller maintains the baseload by adjusting the
steam flow.

Fig. 4: Steam Turbine

Other Accessories of Combined Cycle Power Plant

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Air Cooled Condenser
The air-cooled steam condenser (ACC-Fig. 5) condenses the turbine exhaust steam or the
de-superheated steam from the turbine bypass. The condensate collected in the
steam/condensate headers drains under gravity to the condensate tank, from where it is
pumped by the condensate extraction pumps to the boiler system on level control.

The turbine back pressure is controlled by fans using pressure transmitters on ST exhaust.
Pressure transmitters protect the ACC in case of overpressure. The control system
modulates a number of fans into operation and fan speed and steam isolating valve position
to meet the back pressure set point.

Temperature transmitters in the main steam duct protect the condenser against overheating.

Fig. 5: Air Cooled Condenser

Types of Condensing System

The selection of the condensing system for a combined cycle power plant varies based on
environmental conditions. They are classified into the following categories:

Water-cooled surface condensers and wet condensing system

Air-cooled condensers
Alternative condensing systems

Air Extraction System

The non–condensable have to be evacuated from the condenser before steam can be
introduced at start-up (hogging process) and should be continuously removed during
normal operation (holding process)
HOGGING PROCESS – For the hogging process, the requirements are to lower the
pressure as quickly as possible from the atmospheric pressure (946 mbar(a)) to 250
mbar(a) ) within 30 minutes.

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 HOLDING PROCESS – Once the vacuum is established and during normal operation,
the hogging extraction skid is shut down and only one holding vacuum set continuously
removes the non-condensable.

Bypass Stack and Diverter

In some instances, when the electric power generation is a must, it should be possible to run
the gas turbine in an open cycle and exhaust the flue gas into the atmosphere instead of
sending it to the HRSG, regardless of the overall efciency. This requires a bypass stack and
a diverter that closes the path to the HRSG and opens it to the atmosphere through the
bypass stack.

The diverter is connected to the GT exhaust duct before the diverging cone of the HRSG,
and this implies that the GT has to meet the plant emissions limits, as any SCR in the HRSG
is also bypassed. Throttling by the diverter could also be used to control steam generation in
the HRSG. This conguration is rare.

The most important characteristic of a well-designed diverter is its ability to completely switch
the flue gas from the bypass stack to HRSG, under all operating conditions.

Auxiliary Systems of Combined Cycle Power Plant

Boiler Feed Water Pump:

The LP drum can be used to feed the boiler feedwater (BFW) pumps on level control as
explained in three elements control system. If there are HP and IP sections, the BFW pumps
can be multiple-stage centrifugal pumps with an intermediate discharge for the IP section.
Automatic minimum flow bypass, Three-way Yarway valve, on the HP discharge nozzle of
the pump is used for minimum flow protection.

Bypass System:
The superheated steam to the steam turbine is bypassed to condenser during the start-up,
ST shutdown, and load rejection. The bypass arrangement includes

HP bypass from HP header to IP header (cold reheat side if reheating is implemented)

IP bypass from IP header (hot reheat side if reheating is implemented) to the
condenser.
LP by-pass from LP header to the condenser.

Each bypass requires a pressure reduction and desuperheating with boiler feedwater or
condensate to meet downstream condenser conditions.

Blow Down Tank:

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To keep the required steam purity, a small percentage (1–3%) of the water in the steam
drums is discharged to continuous blow-down.

For large boilers, there is a pressure blow-down tank into which the HP and IP steam drums
drain. In addition, an atmospheric blow-off tank is also provided to receive the water from the
blow-down tank plus the drains from the LP drum and the blow-off from the HP and IP
drums.

Demineralization Plant:

The water needed for lling the HRSG and as make-up water during normal operation is
generated in a demineralization plant. The demineralization plant is usually controlled by its
own PLC, which is interfaced with the DCS, but sometimes is controlled directly by the plant
DCS system.

The demineralized water is stored in a tank that should be sized sufciently large to provide
water in case of disruption in the production. It should also store enough water to supply the
quantity needed for pipe blowing in the pre-commissioning stage, without the need for
waiting for the production of new water. This consideration can be the basis for sizing the
demineralized water storage tank

Closed Circuit Cooling Water:

If an air condenser is used, the closed-circuit cooling water system becomes much smaller,
because the amount of water needed in the rest of the plant is a relatively small percentage
of that needed for the water condenser. The users of the CCCW are turbine generators,
condensate and feed water pumps, sampling systems, etc.

Other auxiliary components of a gas turbine can be

Gear Box
Intercooler heat exchanger
regeneration heat exchanger
supplementary firing system

Start-up philosophy of Combined Cycle power generation plants

The main concern in starting a combined cycle power plant is to avoid thermal stresses to
the machines that would shorten their life and produce unsafe conditions. This consideration
extends the time for start-up, while economics require that start-up to take place in the
minimum possible time and with minimum fuel consumption.

Each manufacturer of the main plant equipment sets the requirements for its machine. The
process design engineers shall combine these requirements with their own to arrive at start-
up procedures that will minimize the overall start-up time.

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The gas turbine is the fastest starting component in a combined cycle power plant. It takes
about less than 10 min to get to the synchronized speed.

HRSG of the combined cycle power plant has thermal inertia and rapid heating may result in
high thermal stresses which would affect the life of the HRSG. In HRSG, the HP steam drum
is most vulnerable to the build-up of thermal stresses if heating is done rapidly. To avoid this
possibility the drum is heated in a controlled manner. The magnitude of the thermal stress
development depends on the temperature difference which in turn depends on the material,
operating pressure, the thickness of the material.

The temperature difference can be effectively controlled by controlling the pressure inside
the drum. If a certain temperature difference is close to the design limit it can be controlled at
that level by holding the pressure constant. This is indicated by the constant
pressure/temperature line.

The heat input is controlled by operating the GT at a reduced load. A gas side bypass
system, which diverts part of the hot GT gasses to the atmosphere is also used to control the
heat input to the boiler.

HRSG start-up without gas bypass damper:

The GT and the HRSG of a combined cycle power plant are connected directly without a
bypass damper if the power production is to be maximized and there is no requirement of
simple cycle operation. It is possible under certain circumstances to run the HRSG ‘dry’ or
produce no steam while the GT is operating. Usually, this requires additional constraints in
the design and limitations of GT exhaust temperature.

HRSG start up with gas bypass damper:

The damper can control the gas flow to the HRSG, part of the gas at operating temperature
passes through the HRSG. Thus the amount of steam production and the drum pressure can
be maintained at the required level by allowing the required amount of gas through the
HRSG

Most of the damper systems have limited turndown capability. Therefore venting or
bypassing the steam is still needed, though the capacity and time required may be less. The
bypass damper must be utilized when there is a need to run the plant in a simple cycle.

The heating of IP and LP drums and the steam production in these drums is not of much
concern because they are operated at low pressures and have low capacities.

Steam turbine warm up:

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The steam turbine of a combined cycle power plant has the most mass and has components
with much thicker cross-sections. Therefore, it needs the longest warming uptime. Warm-up
generally takes three to five hours. Since the Steam Turbine start-up takes longer, the HRSG
needs to be maintained at the low load operation for a much longer time if the steam is
supplied for warm-up.

Various combinations of start-up scenarios are feasible for a power plant. These are mainly
determined by the temperature of each of the components at the start-up time. For instance

a ‘cold’ state means that the component is at room temperature, having been down for
a considerable time, usually days.
A ‘warm’ start results when the unit was down for a few hours and most of the heat is
not lost.
A ‘hot’ start occurs when the unit is shut-off for a very short period of time after
operating for a considerable time at full load.

Fuel for Combined Cycle Power Plant

Combines cycle power plants can be fuelled using the following:

Natural gas
Crude oil
Bunker fuel
Distillate and
Residual oil

However, Fuelling with crude or residual oil, calls for extra capital spending for fuel treatment
equipment. Also, the operation suffers due to additional operating costs for additives to
counteract contaminants present. The type of fuel and mode of operation decides the
maintenance intervals and the amount of maintenance work required.

Advantages of Combined Cycle Power Plant

The major advantages of a combined cycle power plant are:

Increases overall plant efficiency: plant efficiency increases by 50% or more

Reduced investment cost: Investment cost reduces by 30% as compared to a
conventional steam power plant.
Reduced water requirement.
Phased installation is possible.
Fully Automatic Operation, so less staff required.
Lower environmental impact.
Highly reliable and Flexible
Can start-up and shut down quickly.

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 Lower maintenance and installation costs.
Lowest global warming effect
Lower construction time.

Disadvantages of Combined Cycle Power Plant

Few disadvantages of a combined cycle power plant are:

Technologies are complex and expensive which increases the initial investment.
The efficiency of part-load demand is poor.
To operate at high temperature and pressure, special metals are required.
Limited fuel switching capability.

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