What is Measurement Metrics

In gas power plants, the overall efficiency of the generation system plays a key role in ensuring stable and efficient power supply. Terms of power supply are usually detailed in power purchase agreements (PPA). Current requirements set by PPAs limit the net power produced by the supplier. This creates opportunities for plant optimization to focus on system efficiency - aiming to increase system life-time with lower operational costs. In this chapter, a gas turbine (GT) system is considered to demonstrate certain features of power plant optimization. Waste heat from the GT exhaust stack is fed into an absorption chiller (AC). The AC cools the air intake at the GT compressor. This cooling reduces the heat rate and increases the GT efficiency. This combined GT-AC system is optimized in a multiobjective setting while considering power limitations (imposed by the PPA). The enhanced chaotic differential evolution (CEDE) is employed for optimizing this system. The obtained results are presented and analyzed in detail.