Steam Rankine cycle (SRC) is a widely used thermal power cycle due to its
ideal properties of the fluid. Compared to organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and organic
flash cycle (OFC), the working fluid and equipment are not expensive. A water
treatment plant is associated with a steam thermal power plant. SRC is a power plant
cycle in thermal power plant, bottoming cycle in a combined cycle power plant or
power generation cycle for a waste heat recovery plant. In this chapter, the performance
characteristics of SRC have been developed and analyzed. A single pressure heat
recovery steam generator (HRSG) with a deaerator is considered to draw the heat from
the industrial waste heat. The conditions for maximum power and maximum efficiency
have been developed. Correlations are presented to find the HRSG pressure at the
available hot gas supply temperature. The work is extended to a case study on SRC
operating with the heat recovery of a cement factory. A power plant layout suitable to
the identified waste heat sources from a cement factory has been developed. From the
evaluation, it has been concluded that approximately 15 MW of electricity can be
generated from its waste heat to meet the electrical load of 15 MW. It indicates that at
the optimized conditions, it is possible to self-generate the electrical demand of the
cement factory from its own waste heat recovery. The analysis recommended a low
pressure in HRSG for maximum power generation.
Keywords: Heat recovery, Rankine cycle, Steam power cycle, Thermal
efficiency, Thermal power plant.