Thermal Power Plant

A thermal power station is a power plant in which the prime mover is steam driven. Water is heated, turns into steam and spins a steam turbine which drives an electrical generator. After it passes through the tur bine, the steam is condensed in a condenser and recycled to where it was heated; this is known as a Rankine cycle. The greatest variation in the design of thermal power stations is due to the different fuel sources. Some prefer to use the term energy centre because such facilities convert forms of heat energy into electricity. Some thermal power plants also deliver heat energy for industrial purposes, for district heating, or for desalination of water as well as delivering electrical power. A large proportion of CO2 is produced by the worlds fossil fired thermal power plants; efforts to reduce these outputs are various and widespread.

There are  number of processes, cycles, machines, materials, equipments. manpower etc. required to get electrical energy from chemical energy available with the raw coal.

Important activities in thermal Power Plant includes

1. Preparation of coal, transportation and crushing of coal inside the plant.

2. Burning of coal and conversion of chemical energy into heat energy ( Conversion of water to steam in the boiler)

3. Conversion of heat energy into mechanical energy in Turbines.

4. Finally conversion of this mechanical energy into Electrical energy with the help of Generator and transportation of this energy up to end users for various applications.

5. Disposal of various wastes from thermal plant with various systems.

There are various thermal power plants based on capacity such as 30, 60, 120, 210, 250, 500, 660, 800, 1000 MW plants in the world. Number of Engineers working in these plants and also number of freshers joining them in a continuous employment cycle . This course will be definitely helpful to them as basic concepts of thermal power plant are explained in very simpler way.