Air cooling techniques and corresponding impacts on combined cycle power plant (CCPP) performance: A review

Abstract This work aims to provide a state-of-the-art review of the performance of combined cycle power plant (CCPP) based on several proposed inlet air cooling systems. Investigators strive to meet the significant need to promote and develop inlet air cooling technologies to recover heat from the wasted energy in the exhaust gases of the CCPP and diminish the environmental impacts. Various types of cooling systems mainly offer a boost for electric power generation during the peak load hours. The output power of the CCPP directly depends on the mass flow rate of air that flows through the air compressor. Therefore, during extremely hot weather conditions, subsequently, the air density drops, and this leads to a drastic decrease in the power output. This paper reviews available studies investigated the impacts of inlet air cooling systems on the performance of the CCPP. The fogging cooling system contributed by up to 17% in improving the total performance of the CCPP; however, with the use of the evaporative cooling, the performance was enhanced by only 4%. The energy consumption of mechanical chiller compared to that of evaporative cooling is high due to the effectiveness of the evaporative cooler which depends on the humidity of inlet airflow. Further, the mechanical cooling system can provide the CCPP with a cooling effect for around 7-hour on-peak periods. This method increases the gain of the CCPP performance by 13.6%. Ultimately, the CCPP equipped with an absorption chiller demonstrates the best solution to increase the performance by up to 23%.