Performance Analysis of Gas Turbine Inlet Air Cooling Plant with Hybrid Indirect Evaporative Cooling and Absorption Chiller System

Abstract

To generate electricity, Gas Turbine Power Plants are extensively used around the world but their efficiency is negatively affected on hot days by ambient air temperatures. efficiency and output power will decrease by 2% and 12.5% respectively at ambient temperature 40°C due to lower air density and the resulting increase in compressor specific work. Ordinarily, cooling down the intake air of the gas turbine is facilitated by employing a variety of Turbine Inlet Air cooling Systems (TIACSs), depending on the plant’s immediate weather conditions. This paper studies a new hybrid cooling method, combined cooling systems (IECS + Absorption Chiller), used for a 157 MW gas power plant located in Asalouyeh in southern Iran. The Performance and Thermo-Economic analysis revealed that the annual power output can be 62,090 MW, the net income generated by the increased electricity sales can be $ 3,670,000 for a 60% period of the year while Payback Period is found to be 1.56 years.