Exergetic sustainability analysis of LM6000 gas turbine power plant with steam cycle

The aim of this study is to develop the exergetic sustainability indicators in order to determine sustainability aspects of gas turbine engine (GTE) based power plant. For this purpose, first a comprehensive exergy analysis of GTE is carried out then the exergetic sustainability indicators are calculated for two power plant configuration, case A for LM6000 GTE based power plant, case B for LM6000 GTE based power plant with steam turbine cycle. The investigated exergetic sustainability indicators are exergy efficiency, waste exergy ratio, exergy destruction factor, recoverable exergy ratio, environmental effect factor and exergetic sustainability. At maximum power operation, case A power plant generates 43.3 MW electricity power whereas 54.3 MW of electricity power is generated by case B power plant thanks to steam turbine cycle contribution. Results show that exergetic sustainability index is obtained as 0.651 for case A and 0.978 for case B power plant. Steam turbine cycle results in improvement of overall efficiency and reviewed exergetic sustainability indicators evidently. Decrease of waste exergy ratio leads to decrease of environmental effect factor and increase both exergetic efficiency and exergetic sustainability index. Moreover, studying these parameters indicates how much improvement is possible for GTE to achieve better sustainability. (c) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.