Thermoeconomic Costs of Production Analysis of a Diesel Cycle- Based Cogeneration Power Plant

Abstract

In this paper a thermoeconomic costs of production analysis of a diesel cycle-based cogeneration Honduran power plant is presented in order to obtain the total production cost of electricity and to obtain a costs allocation that is more rigorous, based on exergy concepts. These costs provide an idea of the measure of sacrifices of the utilized resources in order to generate the final product. Many papers related with thermoeconomic analysis can be cited. However, there are few articles related to this kind of analysis applied to a diesel cycle-based cogeneration power plant. Here, the Exergy Costs Theory has been applied in order to achieve the objectives. The power plant has 8 internal combustion engines with an 11.340 MW capacity each. Only three of them have a boiler installed which uses the exhaust gases of combustion for vapor generation. The others five emit the exhaust gases to the environment. Some options are explored to commercialize the residual steam since it is ejected still at high temperatures, either as direct sale or cogeneration for power production using micro turbines.