Biomass Fuels and Energy
Biomass energy systems utilize solar energy that has been captured and stored in plant material during photosynthesis. While the overall efficiency of conversion of sunlight to stored chemical energy is low, plants have already solved the two key problems associated with all solar energy technologies that is, how to collect the energy when it is [...]
Electricity Power Plant and Demands
Posted under Energy, Industry, Power Source
The traditional, vertically integrated utility incorporating generation, transmission, distribution, and customer energy services is in the beginning stages of what could prove to be quite revolutionary changes. The era of ever-larger central power stations seems to have ended. The opening of the transmission and distribution grid to independent power producers who offer cheaper, more efficient, [...]
Electric Transmission and Distribution
Posted under Industry, Power Source
While the generation side of electric power systems usually receives the most attention, the shift toward utility restructuring, along with the emergence of distributed generation systems, is causing renewed interest in the transmission and distribution (T&D) side of the business. Below chart shows the relative capital expenditures on T&D over time compared with generation by [...]
Gas Turbines
Posted under Energy, Industry, Power Source
The characteristics of combustion gas turbines for electricity generation are somewhat complementary to those of the steam turbine-generators just discussed. Steam power plants tend to be large, coal-fired units that operate best with fairly fixed loads. They tend to have high capital costs, largely driven by required emission controls, and low operating costs since they [...]
Steam Power Plant
Posted under Energy, Power Source
Conventional thermal power plants can be categorized by the thermodynamic cycles they utilize when converting heat into work. Utility-scale thermal power plants are based on either the Rankine cycle, in which a working fluid is alternately vaporized and condensed, or the Brayton cycle, in which the working fluid remains a gas throughout the cycle. Most [...]
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