Overall Optimization of a Comprehensive Utility System

摘要

This contribution follows the earlier work by Ndlovu and Majozi (2012) on the optimization of a comprehensive power plant utility system, a system consisting of a boiler and a cooling tower. Unlike previous research on the power plant utility system which had focused on the boiler and cooling water systems in a discrete manner, the authors presented a holistic method of analysis and treatment of the combined utility system. In this work further details of the nonlinear comprehensive system model are presented and the objective is maximizing the net revenue from operating the utility system, which is the difference between the total operating costs and the proceeds from the sale of electricity. The work has shown that up to 8 % increase in revenue is achieved when the process is optimized as a single utility system.