Impact on specific steam consumption of turbine by improving power factor of generator?
We intend to reduce the steam consumption by improving power factor of the system.
Please suggest along with calculations if it is feasible.
Answer:
If steam consumption and power produced are that far from design, I would recommend having a representative from the company that built or installed them come have a look. That is a HUGE difference from design and could mean a lot of lost money.
I'm not an engineer, but operate a 6MW steam turbine driven generator. That far from design would be very costly for us. We have been investigating a capacitor bank to reduce the inductive load that is on the generator.
Agree with Mikey, since you're islanded, the only way to improve PF would be to introduce some capacitance to move PF closer to 1.0 (As many KVAR capacitive as you have KVAR inductive at any given moment gives you unity). However, the change in actual mechanical load you would see just by lowering your excitation a little shouldn't be anywhere near enough to explain/correct what you're consuming in steam over the designed values. Leaky boiler? Eroded vanes in the turbine section? Sounds like more than just a PF issue. Do you have the specific values or curve of steam consumption for the whole operating range of the units? They're more efficient at full load, so your steam consumption/MWh will be less favorable at anything less than full load.
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