Effect of Inlet Air Humidity on Performance of Solar Hybrid Combined Cycle Power Plant

The hybridization of conventional power plants by integrating renewable energy technologies is gaining attention in the recent past. These hybrid power plants perform better than conventional power plants and also have less detrimental effects on environment. In the presented research work a solar central receiver is integrated with a conventional gas turbine power plant with a bottoming steam Rankine cycle. The effect of specific humidity of air entering the compressor is on the performance of the power plant is studied. The humidification of air can be done in two ways viz. heating-humidification and cooling-humidification. The performance of the power plant for the afore mentioned processes are compared and it is found that the efficiency of the plant improved by 1% through heating-humidification of air.