REPRESENTING OPTIMAL POWER PLANTS BY LINEARMODELS

EZEQUIEL GODOY; NICOLÁS SCENNA; SONIA BENZ

Rosario

Congreso; MACI; 2009

The non-linear programming mathematical model of the power plant is implemented in GAMS to optimize the power plant performance, here evaluated through its thermal efficiency. This formulation yields optimal values of all the operative and design variables, including the thermal efficiency, the power ratio, the transfer area distribution, the compression ratio, the operative temperature of the evaporator and the flow rates of fuel, air and steam. Then, an easy to use linear model of the optimal power plant is developed as the optimal values of technical decision variables are correlated as a function of the specific heat transfer area. Therefore, this linear model can be used to find accurate estimations of the optimal values of the main operative and design parameters of a power plant.