Software for more effective power plant production
The environmental impact, the consumption of waste products and the efficiency of the entire system's performance are criteria that have to be well understood before agencies consider the building of modern power facilities. To affect the overall understanding of these values, a consortium of European industry and university specialists undertook the development of software to aid the energy industry. The software, known as PSEconomy, is analytical in nature, capable of estimating the capital investment requirements as well as the operational and maintenance costs throughout the power plant's operational life cycle. As an extension of the commercially available IPSEpro software, PSEconomy is adjusted to a specific area of application rather than a specific field. By being based on an appropriate model library and cost database, the PSEconomy software is also capable of optimising the through-life economic performance of a process system. The GTPOM_Lib is both a model library and a cost-correlation database. It has been developed according to the project's partner needs and provides the user a variety of standardised component models for use in new and novel gas turbine cycles. These component models are generic by definition, but where appropriate come with design-point and off-point performance models as well as investment and maintenance cost models. The software is flexible, containing all the necessary means to be extended to other fields of application. Considering the above, the project takes a tremendous leap forward in making the European Thermo-Economic Power Plant development industry competitive as well as minimising pollution levels on a global scale.
