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Power station
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"Power plant" redirects here. For other uses, see Power plant (disambiguation).
For other uses, see Power station (disambiguation).
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generator varies widely. Most power stations in the world burn fossil
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fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas to generate electricity, and some
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Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Thermal power stations
2.1 Classification
2.1.1 By heat source
2.1.2 By prime mover
2.1.3 By duty
2.2 Cooling towers
3 Power from renewable energy
3.1 Hydroelectricity
3.2 Pumped storage
3.3 Solar
Bosanski
3.4 Wind
Catal
3.5 Marine
etina
3.6 Osmosis
Dansk
Eesti
5 Operations
Esperanto
6 See also
7 References
Gidhlig
Hrvatski
Bahasa Indonesia
slenska
Italiano
Latina
Latvieu
3.7 Biomass
Deutsch
Franais
8 External links
History
[edit]
The world's first power station was designed and built by Lord Armstrong at Cragside, England in 1868. Water from
one of the lakes was used to power Siemens dynamos. The electricity supplied power to lights, heating, produced hot
water, ran an elevator as well as labor-saving devices and farm buildings.[4][5]
The first public power station was the Edison Electric Light Station, built in London at 57, Holborn Viaduct, which
started operation in January 1882. This was a project of Thomas Edison that was organized and managed by his
Lietuvi
partner, Edward Johnson. A Babcock and Wilcox boiler powered a 125 horsepower steam engine that drove a 27 ton
Limburgs
generator called Jumbo, after the celebrated elephant. This supplied electricity to premises in the area that could be
Magyar
reached through the culverts of the viaduct without digging up the road, which was the monopoly of the gas
Bahasa Melayu
companies. The customers included the City Temple and the Old Bailey. Another important customer was the
Telegraph Office of the General Post Office, but this could not be reached though the culverts. Johnson arranged for
the supply cable to be run overhead, via Holborn Tavern and Newgate.[6]
Nederlands
Norsk bokml
In September 1882 in New York, the Pearl Street Station was established by Edison to provide electric lighting in the
Norsk nynorsk
lower Manhattan Island area. The station ran until destroyed by fire in 1890. The station used reciprocating steam
Nouormand
engines to turn direct-current generators. Because of the DC distribution, the service area was small, limited by
Ozbekcha/
voltage drop in the feeders. The War of Currents eventually resolved in favor of AC distribution and utilization,
Polski
although some DC systems persisted to the end of the 20th century. DC systems with a service radius of a mile
Portugus
(kilometer) or so were necessarily smaller, less efficient of fuel consumption, and more labor-intensive to operate
Romn
Sicilianu
AC systems used a wide range of frequencies depending on the type of load; lighting load using higher frequencies,
Simple English
Slovenina
Slovenina
and traction systems and heavy motor load systems preferring lower frequencies. The economics of central station
generation improved greatly when unified light and power systems, operating at a common frequency, were
developed. The same generating plant that fed large industrial loads during the day, could feed commuter railway
lnski
systems during rush hour and then serve lighting load in the evening, thus improving the system load factor and
/ srpski
reducing the cost of electrical energy overall. Many exceptions existed, generating stations were dedicated to power
Srpskohrvatski /
or light by the choice of frequency, and rotating frequency changers and rotating converters were particularly
Suomi
common to feed electric railway systems from the general lighting and power network.
Throughout the first few decades of the 20th century central stations became larger, using higher steam pressures to
Svenska
provide greater efficiency, and relying on interconnections of multiple generating stations to improve reliability and
Trke
cost. High-voltage AC transmission allowed hydroelectric power to be conveniently moved from distant waterfalls to
city markets. The advent of the steam turbine in central station service, around 1906, allowed great expansion of
generating capacity. Generators were no longer limited by the power transmission of belts or the relatively slow speed
Ting Vit
of reciprocating engines, and could grow to enormous sizes. For example, Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti planned what
Wolof
would have been the largest reciprocating steam engine ever built for a proposed new central station, but scrapped
Edit links
the plans when turbines became available in the necessary size. Building power systems out of central stations
required combinations of engineering skill and financial acumen in equal measure. Pioneers of central station
generation include George Westinghouse and Samuel Insull in the United States, Ferranti and Charles Hesterman
Merz in UK, and many others.
[edit]
Classification [edit]
By heat source [edit]
Fossil-fuel power stations may also use a steam turbine generator or in the case of natural gas-fired plants may
use a combustion turbine. A coal-fired power station produces heat by burning coal in a steam boiler. The steam
drives a steam turbine and generator that then produces electricity The waste products of combustion include
ash, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide. Some of the gases can be removed from the waste
stream to reduce pollution.
Nuclear power plants[7] use a nuclear reactor's heat that is transferred to steam which then operates a steam
Solar thermal electric plants use sunlight to boil water and produce
steam which turns the generator.
By prime mover [edit]
Steam turbine plants use the dynamic pressure generated by
expanding steam to turn the blades of a turbine. Almost all large nonhydro plants use this system. About 90% of all electric power
produced in the world is through use of steam turbines.[8]
Gas turbine plants use the dynamic pressure from flowing gases (air
and combustion products) to directly operate the turbine. Natural-gas
fuelled (and oil fueled) combustion turbine plants can start rapidly and
so are used to supply "peak" energy during periods of high demand,
though at higher cost than base-loaded plants. These may be
comparatively small units, and sometimes completely unmanned,
being remotely operated. This type was pioneered by the UK,
Princetown[9] being the world's first, commissioned in 1959.
Combined cycle plants have both a gas turbine fired by natural gas,
and a steam boiler and steam turbine which use the hot exhaust gas
from the gas turbine to produce electricity. This greatly increases the
overall efficiency of the plant, and many new baseload power plants
are combined cycle plants fired by natural gas.
Internal combustion reciprocating engines are used to provide power for isolated communities and are frequently
used for small cogeneration plants. Hospitals, office buildings, industrial plants, and other critical facilities also use
them to provide backup power in case of a power outage. These are usually fuelled by diesel oil, heavy oil, natural
gas, and landfill gas.
Microturbines, Stirling engine and internal combustion reciprocating engines are low-cost solutions for using
opportunity fuels, such as landfill gas, digester gas from water treatment plants and waste gas from oil production.
By duty [edit]
Power plants that can be dispatched (scheduled) to provide energy to a system include:
Base load power plants run nearly continually to provide that component of system load that doesn't vary during a
day or week. Baseload plants can be highly optimized for low fuel cost, but may not start or stop quickly during
changes in system load. Examples of base-load plants would include large modern coal-fired and nuclear
generating stations, or hydro plants with a predictable supply of water.
Peaking power plants meet the daily peak load, which may only be for one or two hours each day. While their
incremental operating cost is always higher than base load plants, they are required to ensure security of the
system during load peaks. Peaking plants include simple cycle gas turbines and sometimes reciprocating internal
combustion engines, which can be started up rapidly when system peaks are predicted. Hydroelectric plants may
also be designed for peaking use.
Load following power plants can economically follow the variations in the daily and weekly load, at lower cost than
peaking plants and with more flexibility than baseload plants.
Non-dispatchable plants include such sources as wind and solar energy; while their long-term contribution to system
energy supply is predictable, on a short-term (daily or hourly) base their energy must be used as available since
generation cannot be deferred. Contractual arrangements ( "take or pay") with independent power producers or
system interconnections to other networks may be effectively non-dispatchable.
[edit]
Power stations can also generate electrical energy from renewable energy sources.
Hydroelectricity [edit]
Main article: Hydroelectricity
Dams built to produce hydroelectricity impound a reservoir of water and
release it through one or more water turbines, connected to generators, and
generate electricity, from the energy provided by difference in water level
upstream and downstream. Hydropower is produced in 150 countries, with the
Asia-Pacific region generating 32 percent of global hydropower in 2010. China
is the largest hydroelectricity producer, with 721 terawatt-hours of production
in 2010, representing around 17 percent of domestic electricity use.
Three Gorges Dam, Hubei, China.
Solar [edit]
Main article: Solar power
Solar energy can be turned into electricity either directly in solar cells, or in a
concentrating solar power plant by focusing the light to run a heat engine.
A solar photovoltaic power plant converts sunlight into direct current electricity
using the photoelectric effect. Inverters change the direct current into
alternating current for connection to the electrical grid. This type of plant does
not use rotating machines for energy conversion.
Solar thermal power plants are another type of solar power plant. They use
either parabolic troughs or heliostats to direct sunlight onto a pipe containing a
heat transfer fluid, such as oil. The heated oil is then used to boil water into
steam, which turns a turbine that drives an electrical generator. The central
tower type of solar thermal power plant uses hundreds or thousands of
mirrors, depending on size, to direct sunlight onto a receiver on top of a tower. Again, the heat is used to produce
steam to turn turbines that drive electrical generators.
Wind [edit]
Main article: Wind power
Wind turbines can be used to generate electricity in areas with strong, steady
winds, sometimes offshore. Many different designs have been used in the
past, but almost all modern turbines being produced today use a threebladed, upwind design. Grid-connected wind turbines now being built are
much larger than the units installed during the 1970s. They thus produce
power more cheaply and reliably than earlier models. With larger turbines (on
the order of one megawatt), the blades move more slowly than older, smaller,
units, which makes them less visually distracting and safer for airborne
animals.
Marine [edit]
Main article: Marine energy
Marine energy or marine power (also sometimes referred to as ocean energy or ocean power) refers to the
energy carried by ocean waves, tides, salinity, and ocean temperature differences. The movement of water in the
worlds oceans creates a vast store of kinetic energy, or energy in motion. This energy can be harnessed to generate
electricity to power homes, transport and industries.
The term marine energy encompasses both wave power power from surface waves, and tidal power obtained
from the kinetic energy of large bodies of moving water. Offshore wind power is not a form of marine energy, as wind
power is derived from the wind, even if the wind turbines are placed over water.
The oceans have a tremendous amount of energy and are close to many if not most concentrated populations.
Ocean energy has the potential of providing a substantial amount of new renewable energy around the world.[13]
Osmosis [edit]
Main article: Osmotic power
Salinity gradient energy is called pressure-retarded osmosis. In this method, seawater is pumped into a pressure
chamber that is at a pressure lower than the difference between the pressures of saline water and fresh water.
Freshwater is also pumped into the pressure chamber through a membrane, which increases both the volume and
pressure of the chamber. As the pressure differences are compensated, a turbine is spun creating energy. This
method is being specifically studied by the Norwegian utility Statkraft, which has calculated that up to 25 TWh/yr
would be available from this process in Norway. Statkraft has built the world's first prototype osmotic power plant on
the Oslo fiord which was opened on November 24, 2009.
Biomass [edit]
Biomass energy can be produced from combustion of waste green material to heat water into steam and drive a
steam turbine. Bioenergy can also be processed through a range of temperatures and pressures in gasification,
pyrolysis or torrefaction reactions. Depending on the desired end product, these reactions create more energy-dense
products (syngas, wood pellets, biocoal) that can then be fed into an accompanying engine to produce electricity at a
much lower emission rate when compared with open burning.
[edit]
The power generated by a power station is measured in multiples of the watt, typically megawatts (106 watts) or
gigawatts (109 watts). Power stations vary greatly in capacity depending on the type of power plant and on historical,
geographical and economic factors. The following examples offer a sense of the scale.
Many of the largest operational onshore wind farms are located in the USA. As of 2011, the Roscoe Wind Farm is the
second largest onshore wind farm in the world, producing 781.5 MW of power, followed by the Horse Hollow Wind
Energy Center (735.5 MW). As of July 2013, the London Array in United Kingdom is the largest offshore wind farm in
the world at 630 MW, followed by Thanet Offshore Wind Project in United Kingdom at 300 MW.
As of April 2012, the largest photovoltaic (PV) power plants in the world are led by India's Gujarat Solar Park rated at
605 megawatts. A planned installation in China will produce 2000 megawatts at peak.[14]
Solar thermal power stations in the U.S. have the following output:
The country's largest solar facility at Kramer Junction has an output of 354 MW
The Blythe Solar Power Project planned production is estimated at 485 MW
Large coal-fired, nuclear, and hydroelectric power stations can generate
hundreds of Megawatts to multiple Gigawatts. Some examples:
The Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in the USA has a rated
capacity of 802 megawatts.
The coal-fired Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station in the UK has a rated
capacity of 2 gigawatts.
The Aswan Dam hydro-electric plant in Egypt has a capacity of 2.1
gigawatts.
The Three Gorges Dam hydro-electric plant in China will have a capacity
of 22.5 gigawatts when complete; 18.2 gigawatts capacity is operating as
of 2010.
Gas turbine power plants can generate tens to hundreds of megawatts. Some
examples:
The Indian Queens simple-cycle peaking power station in Cornwall UK, with a single gas turbine is rated 140
megawatts.
The Medway Power Station, a combined-cycle power station in Kent, UK with two gas turbines and one steam
turbine, is rated 700 megawatts.[15]
The rated capacity of a power station is nearly the maximum electrical power that that power station can produce.
Some power plants are run at almost exactly their rated capacity all the time, as a non-load-following base load power
plant, except at times of scheduled or unscheduled maintenance.
However, many power plants usually produce much less power than their rated capacity.
In some cases a power plant produces much less power than its rated capacity because it uses an intermittent
energy source. Operators try to pull maximum available power from such power plants, because their marginal cost is
practically zero, but the available power varies widelyin particular, it may be zero during heavy storms at night.
In some cases operators deliberately produce less power for economic reasons. The cost of fuel to run a load
following power plant may be relatively high, and the cost of fuel to run a peaking power plant is even higherthey
have relatively high marginal costs. Operators keep power plants turned off ("operational reserve") or running at
minimum fuel consumption[citation needed] ("spinning reserve") most of the time. Operators feed more fuel into load
following power plants only when the demand rises above what lower-cost plants (i.e., intermittent and base load
plants) can produce, and then feed more fuel into peaking power plants only when the demand rises faster than the
load following power plants can follow.
Operations
[edit]
The power station operator has several duties in the electricity-generating facility. Operators are responsible for the
safety of the work crews that frequently do repairs on the mechanical and electrical equipment. They maintain the
equipment with periodic inspections and log temperatures, pressures and other important information at regular
intervals. Operators are responsible for starting and stopping, the generators depending on need. They are able to
synchronize and adjust the voltage output of the added generation with the running electrical system, without
upsetting the system. They must know the electrical and mechanical systems in order to troubleshoot solve/fix
problems in the facility and add to the reliability of the facility. Operators must be able to respond to an emergency
and know the procedures in place to deal with it.
See also
[edit]
Cooling tower
District heating
Electricity generation
Environmental concerns with electricity generation
Flue gas stacks
Fossil-fuel power station
Geothermal power
List of power stations
List of largest power stations in the world
List of thermal power station failures
Plant efficiency
Relative cost of electricity generated by different sources
References
[edit]
1. ^ British Electricity International (1991). Modern Power Station Practice: incorporating modern power system practice (3rd
Edition (12 volume set) ed.). Pergamon. ISBN 0-08-040510-X.
2. ^ Babcock & Wilcox Co. (2005). Steam: Its Generation and Use (41st edition ed.). ISBN 0-9634570-0-4.
3. ^ Thomas C. Elliott, Kao Chen, Robert Swanekamp (coauthors) (1997). Standard Handbook of Powerplant Engineering
(2nd edition ed.). McGraw-Hill Professional. ISBN 0-07-019435-1.
4. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-21586177
5. ^ http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/cragside/
6. ^ Jack Harris (14 January 1982), "The electricity of Holborn" , New Scientist
7. ^ Nuclear Power Plants Information , by International Atomic Energy Agency
8. ^ Wiser, Wendell H. (2000). Energy resources: occurrence, production, conversion, use . Birkhuser. p. 190. ISBN 9780-387-98744-6.
9. ^ SWEB's Pocket Power Stations
10. ^ J.C. Hensley (Editor) (2006). Cooling Tower Fundamentals (2nd Ed. ed.). SPX Cooling Technologies.
11. ^ Beychok, Milton R. (1967). Aqueous Wastes from Petroleum and Petrochemical Plants (4th Edition ed.). John Wiley
and Sons. LCCN 67019834. (Includes cooling tower material balance for evaporation emissions and blowdown effluents.
Available in many university libraries)
12. ^ AAAS Annual Meeting 17 - 21 Feb 2011, Washington DC. Sustainable or Not? Impacts and Uncertainties of LowCarbon Energy Technologies on Water. Dr Evangelos Tzimas , European Commission, JRC Institute for Energy, Petten,
Netherlands
13. ^ Carbon Trust, Future Marine Energy. Results of the Marine Energy Challenge: Cost competitiveness and growth of
wave and tidal stream energy, January 2006
14. ^ http://blogs.worldbank.org/climatechange/will-china-and-us-be-partners-or-rivals-new-energy-economy
15. ^ CCGT Plants in South England , by Power Plants Around the World
External links
[edit]
Electricity delivery
V T E
[hide]
Availability factor Baseload Black start Capacity factor Demand factor Demand management EROEI
Concepts
Fault Grid storage Intermittency Load following Nameplate capacity Peak demand Power quality
Power-flow study Repowering Spark spread
Nonrenewable
Sources
Technology
Transmission and
distribution
Renewable
Coal Fossil-fuel power station Natural gas Petroleum Nuclear Oil shale
Biomass Biofuel Geothermal Hydro Marine (Current Osmotic Thermal Tidal Wave)
Solar Wind
AC power Cogeneration Combined cycle Cooling tower Induction generator Micro CHP Microgeneration
Rankine cycle Three-phase electric power Virtual power plant
Blackout (Rolling blackout) Demand response Distributed generation Dynamic demand
Electric power distribution Electrical grid High-voltage direct current Load management Pumped hydro
Power storage Negawatts Smart grid Substation Super grid Transformer TSO Transmission tower
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Carbon offset Ecotax Energy subsidies Feed-in tariff Fossil-fuel phase-out Net metering Pigovian tax
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