Advanced exergy analysis of an electricity-generating facility using natural gas

This paper deals with the performance assessment of an electricity generation facility located in the Eskisehir Industry Estate Zone in Turkey using advanced exergy analysis method. The exergy efficiency of the system is determined to be 40.2% while the total exergy destruction rate of the system is calculated to be 78.242 MW. The exergy destruction rate within the facility's components is divided into four parts, namely endogenous, exogenous, avoidable and unavoidable exergy destruction rates. Through this analysis, the improvement potentials of both the components and the overall system along with the interactions between the components are deducted based on the actual operational data. The analysis indicates that the combustion chamber, the high pressure steam turbine and the condenser have high improvement potentials. The relations between the components are weak because of the ratio of the endogenous exergy rates of 70%. The improvement potential of the system is 38%. It may be concluded that one should focus on the gas turbine and combustion chamber for improving the system, being the most important components of the system. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.