Investigating the New and Advanced Energy Conversion Technologies in Analysis of Power Plants

Optimization of energy conversion technologies becomes more important due to limitations of fossil fuels and the environmental impact during their use. For decades, the response to the ever-growing need for electric generation capacity was to build a new steam power plant, one not very different from the previous one. So, considering the importance of thermal power plants (steam, gas and combined cycle) as the main sources of power generation in Iran, the purpose of this study was to investigate the new and advanced energy conversion technologies to measure technical efficiency and productivity in the analysis of power plants as one of the main elements of the cycle of power plant improvement in 10 active thermal power plants at the country in the year 2011-2016. Among the studied power plants, Booshehr power plant with 4.5% positive growth in efficiency had the best scale efficiency and Shahid Firoozi power plant with -3.8% negative growths in scale efficiency had the worst efficiency. The results of the study of the technical efficiency of 10 power plants show that the average technical efficiency of the power plants in 2016 under the assumption of VRS and CRS was 84.2, 89.8%, respectively. So Zarand, Qom and Fars power plants have been introduced as reference plants. The results for both VRS and CRS assumptions show that combined cyclic power plants had a higher average technical efficiency than other power plants. It is recommended that power plants that use only gas turbines to generate electricity will move toward the combined cycle power plants to improve the efficiency. So most influential factor in the changes in the efficiency of selected plants is technological change, which has had a slight annual growth. Finally, in order to increase technical efficiency, which ultimately increases productivity, it is suggested that power plants provide education, advice and promotion of new technologies.