Exergy Costs and Inefficiency Diagnosis of a Dual-Purpose Power and Desalination Plant

Abstract

Two applications of the thermoeconomic analysis technique have been performed to an interesting and complex system, which is an integrated dual plant composed of a steam power plant and a multi-stage desalination plant. A complete exergy and thermoeconomic costs analysis of different plant performances and the diagnosis of inefficiencies in a plant component are discussed in this paper. The results show that the knowledge of the physical cost of the two products of the plant and also the intermediate costs of every plant flowstream are essential to manage the plant in the best feasible condition. The inefficiency diagnosis computes the penalties of those inefficiencies, translates them into economical charges, and allows unexpected relationships between different plant components to be discovered.