Operation improvement of steam power plant at various loads by using the genetic algorithm

Electricity generation and consumption are the indicators of industrial development in each country. Most of the electricity generation in Iran is produced by the steam power plants. Optimum regulation of various parameters leads to the best operation of these power stations. Mass flow rates of the turbines extractions are one of the factors that effects on the fuel consumption and produced electricity of the power plant. The aim of this paper is the optimization of steam power plants by regulation of turbine's extractions mass flow rates in an optimum state. On the other hand, optimization of complex energy systems such as power plants by usual mathematical methods is very time-consuming. In this research, after the energy and exergy analysis of the Shahid Rajaei steam power plant located in Iran, optimization of the plant will be done by one of the soft computing methods namely as the genetic algorithm. Using this method, the profit of the power plant at 60, 80, and 100% of the nominal power was increased 2242080, 2575360, and 1223840 $ per annum, respectively.