Coal-fired power generation will continue to be the cornerstone of China’s energy sources in the coming decades and advanced ultra-supercritical technology is the future of coal-fired power generation. This paper selects double reheat cycle design for study and incorporates back pressure extraction steam turbine (BEST) into current cycle design, which used to drive boiler feed water pump and feed regenerative heaters. This design prevailed in US in 1960s and gradually was replaced by condensing turbine due to less efficiency benefits at subcritical steam condition. Reinvention of BEST design in current double reheat cycle is an evitable choice, because the efficiency advantage is improved at USC steam condition.
BEST configuration incorporated into current double reheat cycle and advanced cycle is developed to compare with other two conventional systems in this study. Thermodynamic simulation at design and off-design condition shows that BEST configuration has an obvious efficiency advantage at design load, but the advantage decreases at partial load. BEST expansion line and reheat pressure is integrated in cycle heat rate optimization. Genetic algorithm is chosen to implement the optimization and exergy analysis method is utilized to evaluate BEST expansion line optimization results. Finally, BEST design limitation and future work is practically concluded.
