Exergy and environmental analysis of a novel turbine inlet air cooling technique for power augmentation in a CCPP based on waste energy

Combined cycle power plant (CCPP) play a crucial role in providing electricity worldwide. Therefore, researchers and industrialists always focus on developing and improving its performance. One of the factors that affect the performance of CCPPs is weather conditions. As weather conditions change, the air density of the environment changes, which ultimately affects the production power of the gas turbine (GT) and consequently the CCPP. To mitigate the effects of weather on CCPPs' performance, power augmentation methods are developed. In the present research, a novel technique is proposed to reduce the air temperature entering the GT by recovering waste heat from the exhaust gas. The heat content of the exhaust gas is used as the heat source of an ejector refrigeration cycle (ERC), and the produced cooling capacity is used to cool down the air entering the GT. Exergy and environmental analyses are performed to investigate the proposed method's effect on exergy efficiency, environmental factors, and sustainability index. The results indicate that by the proposed method the power production of the CCPP is increased 6.26%.