National Seminar on Thermal Power Plant Performance Management - NSTPPPM
Recent Developments in Thermal Power
Generation
T.K. Ghosh and Sanjoy Bhattacharya
Abstract--- Steam Turbine based Thermal generating
plants form the backbone of Power generation in many
countries. Though old technologies like Steam, Hydro &
Nuclear Turbines have progressed to dizzying levels, newer
“Clean” technologies like Wind, Tidal & Solar have also
gained major share of the grid in many countries. Considering
the high capital costs involved in new generation “Clean
Technologies”, developing countries like India having an
abundance of cheap Fossil fuel reserves have to give a major
thrust to improvement in fossil-fired power technologies. The
paper dwells on the recent developments in the field of
Thermal power generation with emphasis on improvements in
cycle efficiencies.
The paper has detailed on these new advanced
technologies notably the Supercritical technology & Ultra
supercritical technology as an alternative to the conventional
ones & how these have helped to make this mode of
generation one of the most efficient in the current generation.
Presently, base load in our country is generated by Fossil
fuel based power plant, and this has become the backbone of
power generation in India. The harmful side effects of using
fossil fuels have led to a negative propaganda against its use,
leading to calls for use of new generation “Clean
Technologies”, especially in developed countries, however,
developing countries like India cannot afford to shift the
backbone of power generation to cleaner technologies. For
this reason, a major thrust to improvement in fossil-fired
power technologies is required, to make them cleaner &
environment friendly.
Therefore the thrust in the last few years has been to
develop superefficient plants employing coal fired boilers
driving steam turbines to generate power. This has been
possible mainly by the adoption of “Supercritical cycles” for
thermal plants on a wide scale, which has the overwhelming
ability to improve overall system efficiency, as well as provide
benefits of lower emissions both on land & in air.
Steam cycles for Thermal power generation employing
Supercritical technology operate at very high pressures &
temperatures. Additionally, these cycles are designed for large
size machines above 600 MW to take full advantage of
economies of scale, thus reducing “Footprint” per megawatt
generated. The paper deals with recent developments in the
design of these cycles in detail as well as compares them to
the existing Sub Critical cycles, highlighting areas of
improvement.
T.K. Ghosh, General Manager, TE & R&D, BHEL, Haridwar. E-mail:
tkghosh@bhelhwr.co.in
Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Addl. General Manager, STE, BHEL, Haridwar. E-
mail: sbhatta@bhelhwr.co.in
ISBN 978-93-83459-12-4 © 2014 Bonfring
47
The paper also highlights how the author’s organization,
BHEL has geared-up for supply of advanced power plant
technologies including supercritical steam turbines to meet &
exceed emerging requirements of society.
I. BHARAT HEAVY ELECTRICALS LTD. (BHEL)
POWERING PROGRESS
P ower Generation in India started in 1897 with the advent
of Hydro turbine based power plants, the first one being
the Sidrapong Hydel Power Station, near Darjeeling consisting
of two 65 kW Crompton-Brunton single-phase, 2300 volts and
83.3 hertz alternators coupled with two Gunther's Turbines.
Due to abundant availability of water, a lot of Hydro plants
were initially set up to generate power. Later, with the
discovery of abundant reserves of coal, a large number of
Thermal sets were set up by the British for meeting power
demand in India’s emerging cites. Due to the limited
manufacturing capabilities of equipment in India, all these
plants were set up using imported equipment. Indigenous
manufacture of Power plant equipment started with the setting
up of HEIL at Bhopal in 1958. Gradually, the technology base
for manufacture of large size Steam Turbines has been
established at Hardwar works of BHEL.
Presently, BHEL has fully developed technology & means
to manufacture subcritical Thermal power generating sets for
utilities, with unit sizes ranging from 200 MW upto 600
MW& supercritical sets upto 800 MW, which form the
backbone of the Indian Grid.
Another Thermal power generation” Clean Technology
“which has taken off in recent times is the field of Nuclear
Technology. Nuclear Power stations, are also based on Steam
Turbines, wherein the Steam is generated in a Reactor by
utilizing the Heat of Nuclear fission in the reactor. The 320
MW Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS) was the first
nuclear power plant in India. The plant went operational in
1969. The authors organization opened its account in this filed
by supplying steam turbine based power plants of ratings upto
235 MW with the building of the indigenous reactors based on
CANDU Technology. With the subsequent upgrade in
technological capability, we supplied turbines for nuclear
power plants upto 500 MW rating using PHWR reactors
designed in India.
BHEL has further upgraded its facilities to supply steam
turbines for Nuclear Power stations upto 700 MW capacity
being set up by Govt. of India.
National Seminar on Thermal Power Plant Performance Management - NSTPPPM
Fig. 1
The BHEL is presently supplying an indigenously
developed 500 MW TG set for a nuclear power station based
on an emerging technology called the PFBR, a brain child of
Indian engineers. This turbine has recently been put on barring
gear & is a feather in the cap of Indian Engineers. In many
ways, though this turbine is unique, yet it shares a lot of the
technology& components with existing sub-critical sets,
having extremely long operating experience. It also leads to
easy availability of spares for the customer.
Fig. 2
However, the main thrust of recent developments has been
on the development of supercritical technology& its
implementation in India.
The start was made by a PSU, NTPC by putting up “First
generation Supercritical sets”, in which the main steam
pressures were of supercritical nature, whereas the
temperatures remained unchanged from those in sets operating
in India. Such sets were also put up by some private players in
India. As such a development did not lead to quantum jump in
cycle efficiencies, Govt. of India, through CEA advocated an
increase in temperatures, as well to take full advantage of this
technology.
Fig. 3
Thus was born the first of the projects with higher steam
temperatures. The first was BARH Stage-II, which was
awarded to the BHEL. This project led to a quantum jump in
ISBN 978-93-83459-12-4 © 2014 Bonfring
48
cycle efficiency, including a host of new features. Some of
these are diagonal first stage blades, Balance piston cooling,
Overload valves, split HP Turbine casings, very large last
stage blades in LP Turbines, High pressure governing & many
others. The advents of this technology made the earlier
turbines look almost prehistoric.
Fig. 4
The benefits of these turbine cycles with elevated
parameters were manifold, with an increase of efficiency by
almost 6-7%.
Fig. 5
With such large gain in efficiency, resulting in reduced
consumption of inputs like fuel & water, drastic reduction in
emissions, the world focus has again shifted to further
development of the next stage of Supercritical Steam Turbine
based Power plants called Ultra supercritical power plants.
The adoption of “Supercritical cycles” for thermal plants
on a wide scale has the ability to improve overall system
efficiency, as well as provide benefits of lower emissions both
on land & in air. This boost has been given as such plants are
not very capital expensive, are relatively efficient & have a
long & reliable service life.
As we see above, Steam cycles for Supercritical
application operate at very high pressures & temperatures.
These are thus characterized by features that take full
advantage of the advanced steam parameters, contributing to
higher system efficiency.
The factors that contribute to the higher cycle efficiencies
are higher expansion in turbines, more stages of feed heating
& higher input levels to Boilers. To take full advantage of
these features, all the components of the steam turbine cycle
are optimally designed to take advantage of these elevated
parameters. Additionally, these cycles are built considering
large size machines, typically above 500 MW to take full
advantage of economies of scale, thus reducing “Footprint”
per megawatt generated.
National Seminar on Thermal Power Plant Performance Management - NSTPPPM
Having seen the power stations from a wider perspective,
it is necessary to see those components of the plant in details,
which contribute to this wonderful improvement in efficiency.
Fig. 6
Most Sub-Critical Power stations are characterized a
regenerative cycle having 6 heaters, with Three operating in
the low pressure cycle & Two at Higher pressures. These are
sufficient to Heat Feed water to the levels required for Sub-
critical boilers operating upto pressures of 170 Kg/cm2.
However, with the advent of Super-critical cycles, there
exists a possibility of using more stages of feed water heating ,
thus improving cycle efficiency & loading on individual
heaters. We see that such cycles typically have EIGHT
Heaters, with Three HP Heaters & Four LP Heaters.
Fig. 7
The feed water Temperature is raised to around 290 Deg.
C& possibility exists to optimize it further, considering the
Steam pressures adopted in the Steam Cycle.
Supercritical plants are being adopted for improved
efficiency, low CO2 emission and reduced NOx, Sox and
particulate emission. In a supercritical plant, at critical
pressure water transforms to steam spontaneously. The critical
pressure and temperature are 221.1 bar and 374.15 deg.C.
Effect of steam parameter on turbine heat rate is such that for
every 1 bar improvement of main stream pressure turbine heat
rate could be reduced by approx. 0.015 %. For every 10 deg.C
improvement of main stream temperature turbine heat rate
could be reduced by 0.25 % to 0.30 %. For every 10 deg.C
improvement of reheat steam temperature, turbine heat rate
could be reduced by 0.15 % to 0.20 %. Drivers for higher
rated supercritical plants are demand for power, lower cost of
generation, environmentally clean technology and lower
requirement for fuel, land and water.
ISBN 978-93-83459-12-4 © 2014 Bonfring
49
Fig. 8
The Major differences in cycle equipment are outlined in a
Tabular form. We see that the type of Boiler has also changed
from Drum Type to a Drum-less or Once Through type,
mainly to cater to the Supercritical state of steam, though it
also gives tremendous benefits in Load control & regulation
over the whole load range.
From the above, we see that Supercritical applications
operating at very high pressures & temperatures have the
inherent ability to contribute a great range of improvement in
Turbine cycle efficiencies. Realising this advantage, the
Government of India has taken a decision to promote the use
of such technology in our country by advocating a gradual
shift to Supercritical Technology in the 12th Plan period. By
the 13th Plan the Government envisages the total switchover to
Supercritical Technology for Utilities, thus contributing a
great extent to a drastic reduction in Carbon Footprint &
Global Warming. The Major Objectives of the Supercritical
Drive can then be characterized as follows:
• Bring down equipment cost per MW
• Have more Efficient & Reliable product
• Utilize available Steam turbine modules for higher
efficiencies of scale
• Provide Higher competitiveness
• Develop New & higher ratings to cater to emerging
market
From the following Table, we see how the BHEL has
geared up in catering to this new segment by obtaining orders
from major players in the Power field in India. We are also
poised to get a major share of the upcoming projects of other
Government & Private sector Power developers as enumerated
below.
Fig. 9
National Seminar on Thermal Power Plant Performance Management - NSTPPPM 50

BHEL, having scaled great heights, we are now ABOUT THE AUTHOR
undertaking new developments. Our studies during execution Mr.T.K. Ghosh has graduated in Mechanical
of Supercritical sets have shown that is is easily possible to Engineering from Jadavpur University in year 1977. He
exceed CEA guidelines on pressure &temperature for inlet joined BHEL Engineer Trainee in 1977. Presently
working as AGM in Steam Turbine Engineering. He
steam. Thus begins the second stage of development of has wide experience of thermodynamic calculations,
‘ULTRA SUPERCRITICAL THERMAL SETS”. We are cycle optimization and module selection. Last 20 years
now working on further elevated steam pressures & are he is working as group leader of Steam turbine blade
capable of offering steam turbines & boilers working at design. Under his leadership advanced design of blades
for 250 MW and 500MW has been developed and
high/elevated temperatures, a level reached only by very few implemented. Number of national and international technical paper has been
manufacturers in the world. Such increase in inlet steam published by him on blade design and optimization of flow-path.
parameters will enable to further improve cycle efficiencies by
around 2-3%, leading to a drastic reduction of fuel & water
Mr. Sanjoy Bhattacharya is working in BHEL,
inputs.
Haridwar from February 1990 till date. Presently
BHEL has developed a modified cycle & is the first to working as Dy.General Manager from June 2009,
heading thermodynamics section. He has the degree of
offer elevated pressures & temperatures, which are much BE (Mech.) with distinction from Madras University in
higher than the levels prevailing in India. With this new cycle, 1988 and he obtained Advanced Diploma in
BHEL shall embark on the next stage of development, i.e. Management from AIMA New Delhi in 1999. He is
Ultra Supercritical thermal sets. also Certified as Energy Auditor from BEE, Govt. of
India, 2007.
In addition, in recent years there has risen a shortage of
cooling water sources that is Vital to the operation of thermal
power plants.
Here again, BHEL is at the forefront by building the ability
to offer specialized turbines that can operate at high condenser
pressures, in which the cooling of steam is done by specialized
air cooled condensers. Though Super Critical plants
employing such Air cooled condensers are not uncommon in
smaller sets, they have recently found wide acceptability in
countries like South Africa & China, where the benefits of
avoiding water handling systems & huge land requirement, far
outweigh the slight losses in efficiency due to higher operating
condenser pressures.
Further these plants can easily be located near coal mines
& in remote areas, wherein water sources are not available.
In conclusion, we see that though older technologies of
Steam Turbines have carried on for decades, newer Clean
Technology developments, most of them recent have
progressed to dizzying levels, gaining major share of the grid
in many countries. However, developing countries like India
having an abundance of cheap Fossil fuel reserves have to
give a major thrust to improvement in fossil-fired power
technologies.
The paper has detailed these new advanced technologies
notably the Supercritical technology & Ultra supercritical
technology as an alternative to the conventional ones. We
have also seen how the Steam Turbine based power station is
emerging the leader of choice for power generation.
Lastly the paper highlights how the BHEL has geared-up
for supply of advanced power plant technologies including
Ultra Supercritical steam turbines to meet & exceed emerging
requirements of society.

ISBN 978-93-83459-12-4 © 2014 Bonfring