Experimental Simulation on the Effect of Leakage of Steam to the Heat Rate of a Plant

Leakages in steam lines or equipment within a steam power plant might not be costly during the days when fuel price was low. However, with the recent escalating price of fossil fuel, the additional cost to make up for the loss in energy caused by steam leakage may be very significant. Even small leakages, if added up together, may affect the plant’s operational cost. As a result, the heat rate of a plant increases and therefore plant operators have no choice but to continuously find ways to minimize leakages besides other means of optimizing plant operations. Quantifying the effect of steam leakage on heat rate is very difficult considering the huge size of a steam power plant, which can comprise numerous sources of leakages. Furthermore, an attempt to conduct an experiment in an industrial steam power plant may interrupt the operation and affect the power supply availability. Due to these limitations, the present work intends to simulate by the effect of steam losses through leakage to the heat rate of a plant. The study is conducted by an experiment using a lab scale steam power plant with a maximum output power capacity of 5-kW. The steam leakage is simulated by discharging steam systematically at a selected pipe location within the steam circuit of the plant. The results show that every one percent increase in steam leakage may increase the heat rate by as high as six percent.