1.

1 Introduction
A thermal power plant is an industrial facility for the generation of electric
power. Itis also termed as energy centre because it more accurately describes
what the plants do, which is the conversion of other forms of energy like
chemical energy, heat energy into electrical energy. Energy exists in various
forms i.e. mechanical, thermal, electrical etc... One form of energy can be
converted into other by the use of suitable arrangements. Out of all these forms
of energy, electrical energy is preferred due to the following advantages: -
 Can be easily transported from one place to another.
 Losses in transport are minimum.
 Can be easily subdivided.
 Economical in use.

Easily converted into other forms of energy. Power is primarily associated with
mechanical work and electrical energy. Therefore, power can be defined as the
rate of flow of energy and can state that a power plant is a unit for production
and delivery of a flow of mechanical and electrical energy. In common usages, a
machine or assemblage of equipment’s that produce and delivers a flow of
mechanical or electrical energy is power plant. A thermal power station is a
power plant in which the prime mover is steam driven. Water is heated,
converted into steam and spins a steam turbine which drives an electrical
generator. After it passes through the turbine, the steam is condensed in a
condenser and recycled to where it was heated; this is known as Rankine Cycle.
The greatest variation in the design of thermal power station is due to the
different fossil fuel resources generally used to heat the water. Certain thermal
power plants are also designed to produce heat energy for industrial purposes
district heating or desalination of water, in addition to generating electrical
power. Globally, fossil fuelled thermal power plant produce a large part of man-
made CO2 emission to the atmosphere, and efforts to reduce these are many,
varied and wide spread Commercial electric utility power stations are most
usually constructed on a very large scale and designed for continuous operation.
Electric power plants typically use three phase or individual phase electric
generators to produce Alternating Current (AC) electric power at a frequency of
50Hz (hertz, which is an AC sine wave per second).
1.2 Concept of Thermal Power Station
Thermal power plant converts energy rich fuel into electricity and heat. Possible
fuels include coal, natural gas, petroleum products, agricultural waste and
domestic waste. Other sources of fuel include landfill gas and bio gases. In
some plants renewal fuels such as biogas are co-fired with coal
Coal and lignite accounted for about 57% of India’s installed capacity.
However, wind energy depends upon wind speed, and hydropower energy on
water level, thermal power plant accounts for over 65% of India’s generated
electricity, India’s electricity sector consumes about 80% of the coal product in
the county. India expects that its projected rapid growth in electricity generation
over the next couple of decades is expected to be largely met by thermal power
plant.

Total Installed Power Generation

1.3 History of Thermal Power Plant
The initially developed reciprocating steam engine has been used to produce
mechanical power since the 18
The century, with notable improvements being made by James Watt. When the
first commercially developed central electrical power stations were established
in 1882 at Pearl Street in New York and Holborn viaduct power station in
London, reciprocating steam engines were used. The development of steam
turbine in 1884 provided large and more efficient machine designs for central
generating stations. By 1892the turbine was considered a better alternative to
reciprocating engines; turbines offered higher speeds, more compact machinery,
and stable speed regulation allowing for parallel synchronous operation of
generators on a common bus. After about 1905, turbines entirely replaced
reciprocating engines in large central power stations. Capacity in India.
The largest reciprocating steam engine-generator sets ever built were completed
in1901 for the Manhattan Elevated Railway. Each of seventeen units weighed
about 500tonnesand was rated 6000kilowatts; a contemporary turbine set of
similar rating would have weighed about 20% as much.
2.1 Introduction
A steam power plant converts the chemical energy of the fossil fuels (Coal, Oil
and Gas) into mechanical/electrical energy. This is achieved by raising thesteam
in the boilers, expanding it through the turbines and coupling the turbines to the
generator which convert mechanical energy to electrical energy.

Production of Electricity by Steam Power Plant.

2.2 General Layout of Thermal Power Plant

The general layout of a thermal power plant consists of mainly four circuits.
The four main circuits are:1.

1) Coal and ash circuit.2.

2) Air and gas circuit.3.
3) Feed water and steam flow circuit.4.
4) Cooling water circuit.

Layout of Thermal Power Plant

A thermal power station using steam as working fluid basically works on the
Rankine cycle. Steam is generated in a boiler, expanded in the prime mover and
condensed in condenser and fed into the boiler again with the help of pump.
However, in actual practice, there are numerous modifications and
improvements in the cycle with the aim of affecting heat economy and to
increase the thermal efficiency of the plant.
A thermal power station using steam as working fluid basically works on the
Rankine cycle. Steam is generated in a boiler, expanded in the prime mover and
condensed in condenser and fed into the boiler again with the help of pump.
However, in actual practice, there are numerous modifications and
improvements in the cycle with the aim of affecting heat economy and to
increase the thermal efficiency of the plant.
1. Coal and ash circuit.
In this circuit, the coal from the storage is fed to the boiler through coal
handling equipment for the generation of steam. Ash produced due to
combustion of coal is removed to ash storage through ash-handling system.
2. Air and gas circuit.
Air is supplied to the combustion chamber of the boiler either through F.D or
I.D fan or by using both. The dust from the air is removed before supplying
to the combustion chamber. The exhaust gases carrying sufficient quantity of
heat and ash are passed through the air-heater where the exhaust heat of the
gases is given to the air and then it is passed through the dust collectors
where most of the dusts removed before exhausting the gases to the
atmosphere through the chimney.
3. Feed water and steam circuit.
The steam generated in the boiler is fed to the steam prime mover to develop
the power. The steam coming out of prime mover is condensed in the
condenser and then fed to the boiler with the help of pump. The condensate
is heated in the feed-heaters using the steam tapped from different points of
the turbine. The feed heaters may be of mixed type or indirect heating type.
Some of the steam and water is lost passing through different components of
the system; therefore, feed water is supplied from external source to
compensate this loss. The feed water supplied from external source is passed
through the purifying plant to reduce the dissolved salts to an acceptable
level. The purification is necessary to avoid the scaling of the boiler tubes.
4. Cooling water circuit.
The quantity of cooling water required to condensate the steam is
considerably large and it is taken either from lake, river or sea. The cooling
water is taken from the upper side of the river; it is passed through the
condenser and discharged to the lower side of the river. Such system of
cooling water supply is possible if adequate cooling water is available
throughout the year. This system is known as open system. When adequate
water is not available, then the water coming-out from the condenser is
either cooled in the cooling pond or cooling tower. The cooling is affected by
partly evaporating the water. This evaporative loss is nearly 2 to5% of the
cooling water circulated in the system. To compensate the evaporative loss,
the water from the river is continuously supplied. When the cooling water
coming out of the condenser is cooled again and supplied to the condenser,
then the system is known as closed system. When the water coming out of
the condenser is discharged to river downward side directly, the system is
known as open system.
2.3 Working Principle of Thermal Power Plant
A thermal power station works on the basic principle that heat liberated by
burning fuel is converted into mechanical work by means of a suitable
working fluid. The mechanical work is converted into electric energy by the
help of generators.

Rankine Cycle.
The working fluid in a Rankine cycle follows a closed loop and is reused
constantly. The water vapour with condensed droplets often seen billowing from
power stations is created by the cooling systems (not directly from the closed-
loop Rankine power cycle) and represents the means for (low temperature)
waste heat to exit the system, allowing for the addition of (higher temperature)
heat that can then be converted to useful work. This 'exhaust ‘heat is represented
by the "Quota" flowing out of the lower side of the cycle. By condensing the
working steam vapour to a liquid, the pressure at the turbine outlet is lowered
and the energy required by the feed pump consumes only 1% to 3% of the
turbine output power and these factors contribute to a higher
efficiency for the cycle.

T-S Diagram of a Rankine Cycle.

3.1 Selection of Fuel
1.Solid Fuel
It is not so simple to suggest the general trend of suitability of coals for steam
generation. The firing qualities of coal are very important when combustion
equipment is being considered.
The slower burning coal of low volatile content generated high-bed temperature
and therefore requires forced draught. The high fuel bed temperature may
damage the grate unless it is protected by adequate ash.
The fast-burning coals of high volatile content require large combustion
chambers for the combustion of the volatiles. Such coals are more suitable for
meeting sudden demand for steam because the liberation of combustible volatile
gas burns rapidly than the solid fuel on the grate.
The most important factors which are considered for the selection of coal are
the sizing, caking, swelling properties and ash fusion temperature. The sulphur
content in the coal also carries considerable importance in most of the cases.
Electro-static preceptors work (ESP) better with high sulphur coal because of
improved resistivity of the flue gases. However, for other systems, a little SO
can raise the acid DPT dramatically and this raise can retard the corrosive
effects on the equipments.
The larger size coal should be used when the draught is low and some moisture
percentage must be essentially maintained if the percentage of fineness of coal
is high. The use of anthracite coal as fuel requires forced draught furnaces
incorporating means for admitting steam to cool the fire bars and hardened
clinker.
2. Liquid Fuel
The liquid fuel is used in thermal power plants to generate the steam instead of
coal as it offers many advantages over coal as listed below:
1) Excess air required for complete combustion is less as uniform mixing of
fuel and air is possible.
2) The storage and handling is much easier compared with coal.
3) The changes in load can be met easily and rapidly
4) There is no problem of ash disposal.
5) The system is very clean.
 6) The operational labour required is less and therefore overheads
areconsiderably less.
The fuel oils used for industrial or domestic purposes are obtained by
refining the crude oil. The refining process separates and recombines the
hydro-carbons into specialised products like gasoline, fuel oil, etc. The
distillation process is generally used to separate into different groups of fuel.
The typical fractions from light to heavy are naphtha, gasoline, kerosene and
gas oil and the remainder is heavy fuel oil which is commonly used
for steam generation.
Constituent Carbon Hydroge Sulphur Oxygen Nitrogen Moisture
n
Percentage 84 22 2 1 0.5 3.5
Fuel Oil Anyalisis

3. Gaseous Fuel
The gaseous fuel may be either natural or manufactured. The
manufactured gas is costly; therefore, only natural gas is used for
steam generation.
The natural gas generally comes out of gas wells and petroleum
wells. It contains60.95% of methane with small amounts of other
hydrocarbons such as ethane, naphthene and aromatic, CO2 and
nitrogen. The natural gas is carried through pipes to distances
which are hundreds of kilometres from the source.