Analysis of combustion turbine inlet air cooling systems applied to an operating cogeneration power plant

In this work, combustion turbine inlet air cooling (CTIAC) systems are analyzed from an economic outlook, their effects on the global performance parameters and the economic results of the power plant. The study has been carried out on a combined cogeneration system, composed of a General Electric PG 6541 gas turbine and a heat recovery steam generator. The work has been divided into three parts. First, a revision of the present CTIAC technologies is shown, their effects on power plant performance and evaluation of the associated investment and maintenance costs. In a second phase of the work, the cogeneration plant was modelled with the objective of evaluating the power increase and the effects on the generated steam and the thermal oil. The cogeneration power plant model was developed, departing from the recorded operational data of the plant in 2005 and the gas turbine model offered by General Electric, to take into consideration that, in 2000, the gas turbine had been remodelled and the original performance curves should be corrected. The final objective of this model was to express the power plant main variables as a function of the gas turbine intake temperature, pressure and relative humidity. Finally, this model was applied to analyze the economic interest of different intake cooling systems, in different operative ranges and with different cooling capacities.