Thermo-economic analysis of implementing fog-based cooling system in GE-F5 gas turbines (case study)

Presently, nearly 26,000 MW-worth of gas power plants and nearly 16,000 MW-worth of combined-cycle power plants have been installed in Iran. But their power output in the summer, when there is the most demand, reduces to a minimum compared to the winter season. The main reason for this is that gas turbines depend on the ambient air temperature. Since most of Iran has warm and dry climates, cooling down the input air to the compressor by means of water evaporation is the simplest method to solve this problem. This paper investigates the thermodynamic and economic behavior of a fog system on four units of GE-F5 turbines installed in the Shahid Zanbagh power plant. The results show that the application of this method causes an increase in the mass flow rate of the air input and reduces the work consumption of the compressor. It increases power production by 2.64 MW, and the required water for each unit is equal to 0.761 kg.s-1. Also, the payback time for this system was calculated to be less than 3 years.