ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Repowering Industrial Combined Heat
and Power Units: a Contribution
to Cleaner Energy Production
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Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology,
Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Radlinského 9, 812 37 Bratislava, Slovakia
Submission date: 2021-07-27
Final revision date: 2021-11-09
Acceptance date: 2021-11-20
Online publication date: 2022-03-07
Publication date: 2022-05-05
Corresponding author
Miroslav Variny
Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Radlinského 9, 812 37, Bratislava, Slovak Republic
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2022;31(3):2861-2879
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ABSTRACT
Repowering of industrial combined heat and power units allows reducing industrial greenhouse
gases emissions. An existing industrial unit served as model in the gas turbines-based repowering
study, aiming at fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions reduction. Following unit's model
setup and verification, two conservative repowering options (hot windbox and separate gas turbine
+ heat recovery steam generator) were assessed from economic, energetic, and environmental point
of view, including seasonal impact. Hot windbox option leads to annual power production increase by
14.3% (72.8 GWh/year), accompanied by carbon dioxide emissions reduction by 3.9 % (29.5 ktons/year)
compared to the base case. The second option delivered more significant power production increase
(+261.9 to +298.6 GWh/year) with CO2 emissions, either slightly higher (+1.5 %) or modestly lower
(-4.0%), than in base case depending on heat recovery efficiency from gas turbine exhaust. Both options
show feasible economics with simple payback period as low as four years under favorable combination
of fuel and electricity prices and CO2 costs. External CO2 emissions change due to the change in unit's
power production further reduces the total CO2 emissions, strongly depending on the applied power
production emission factor.