E.

Kakaras
Associate Professor e-mail: ekak@central.ntua.gr

Inlet Air Cooling Methods for Gas Turbine Based Power Plants
Background: Power generation from gas turbines is penalized by a substantial power output loss with increased ambient temperature. By cooling down the gas turbine intake air, the power output penalty can be mitigated. Method of Approach: The purpose of this paper is to review the state of the art in applications for reducing the gas turbine intake air temperature and examine the merits from integration of the different air-cooling methods in gas-turbine-based power plants. Three different intake air-cooling, methods (evaporative cooling, refrigeration cooling, and evaporative cooling of precompressed air) have been applied in two combined cycle power plants and two gas turbine plants. The calculations were performed on a yearly basis of operation, taking into account the time-varying climatic conditions. The economics from integration of the different cooling systems were calculated and compared. Results: The results have demonstrated that the highest incremental electricity generation is realized by absorption intake air-cooling. In terms of the economic performance of the investment, the evaporative cooler has the lowest total cost of incremental electricity generation and the lowest payback period (PB). Concerning the cooling method of pre-compressed air, the results show a signicant gain in capacity, but the total cost of incremental electricity generation in this case is the highest. Conclusions: Because of the much higher capacity gain by an absorption chiller system, the evaporative cooler and the absorption chiller system may both be selected for boosting the performance of gas-turbine-based power plants, depending on the prevailing requirements of the plant operator. DOI: 10.1115/1.2131888

A. Doukelis
Research Associate e-mail: adoukel@central.ntua.gr Laboratory of Steam Boilers and Thermal Plants, National Technical University of Athens, Iroon Polytechniou 9, Athens 15780, Greece

A. Prelipceanu
Process Engineer e-mail: alexander.prelipceanu@linde-le.com

S. Karellas
Research Associate e-mail: karellas@ltk.mw.tum.de Lehrstuhl fr Thermische Kraftanlagen, Technische Universitt Mnchen, 85747 Garching, Germany

Introduction
Gas turbines have gained widespread acceptance in the power generation, mechanical drive, and gas transmission markets. Their compactness, high power-to-weight ratio, and ease of installation have made them a popular prime mover. Improvements in hot section materials, cooling technologies, and aerodynamics have allowed increases in ring temperatures. Consequently, thermal efciencies are currently very attractive, with simple cycle efciencies ranging between 32 and 42 % and combined cycle efciencies reaching the 60% mark. Yet, gas turbine output and efciency is a strong function of the ambient air temperature. Depending on the gas turbine type, power output is reduced by a percentage between 5% and more than 10% of the ISO-rated power output 15 C for every 10 K increase in ambient air temperature. At the same time, the specic heat consumption increases by a percentage between 1.5% and more than 4% 1 . The highest losses in gas turbine power output usually coincide with periods of high electricity demand. This poses a signicant problem for turbine operators, especially in the rapidly deregulating power generation sector where the structure of supply agreements and the dynamics of an open market mean that power producers are paid signicantly more for power generated during high demand periods. Even if this is not the case, during high-demand periods power margins may have been exhausted, and in such cases, augmenting power can have a notable impact on the systems reliability, as well as on the decision for new power plant installations. By the addition of an air-cooling system at the compressor intake, the inlet air can be conditioned to lower temperatures than ambient, thus improving plant performance at high ambient temperatures. The purpose of this paper is to review the state of the art in applications for reducing the gas turbine intake air temperature in gas-turbine-based power plants. Three different cooling, methods
Contributed by the International Gas Turbine Institute IGTI of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING FOR GAS TURBINES AND POWER. Manuscript received July 15, 2004; nal manuscript received September 23, 2005. Review conducted by M. Boyce.

for reducing the intake air temperature are examined: evaporative cooling, refrigeration cooling, and evaporative cooling of precompressed air. Two combined cycle CC power plants and two gas turbine plants owned and operated by the Public Power Corporation of Greece PPC have been selected as test cases for analysis of the merits from integration of the different gas turbine intake air-cooling methods. Following the discussion on the different cooling methods, the results of the effect of integration of the inlet air-cooling systems under investigation on the operation of the selected power plants are presented and discussed. The calculations are performed on a yearly basis of operation and the timevarying climatic conditions are taken into account. Finally, the economics from integration of the different cooling systems are calculated and compared.

Gas Turbine Intake Air-Cooling Methods

The performance deterioration of gas turbines in terms of power output and efciency at high ambient air temperatures, coinciding with time periods of high electricity demand, implies that the integration of an intake air-cooling system could be an important consideration to boost the performance of the plant. Two different techniques are mainly available for intake air-cooling in gas-turbine-based power plants: evaporative cooling and refrigeration cooling. A third innovative approach not yet implemented is evaporative cooling of precompressed air. Thermal energy storage systems are not discussed in this paper. Evaporative Cooling. Evaporative cooling is based on the evaporation of water in the intake air of the gas turbine. As water evaporates, the latent heat of evaporation is absorbed from the surrounding air. As a result, the air is cooled during the process. In the limiting case, the air leaves the cooler at a saturated state. The evaporative cooling process is, essentially, identical to the adiabatic saturation process, since the heat transfer between the air stream and the surroundings is usually negligible. Therefore, the evaporative cooling process follows a line of constant enthalpy on the psychrometric chart. Traditional evaporative coolers that use media for evaporation Transactions of the ASME

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Fig. 1 Schematic layout of direct inlet fogging of air

of the water have been widely used in the gas turbine industry over the years, especially in hot arid areas. In this type of cooler, water is distributed over media blocks which are made of brous corrugated material 2 positioned at the gas turbine intake. The airow through the blocks evaporates the water. The effectiveness of these coolers, which as dened as the ratio of the temperature difference between inlet and exit of the cooler and the temperature difference if the air left the cooler at a saturated state, is, typically, 8085%, meaning that the wet bulb temperature can never be attained. In addition, the increased pressure loss caused by the media blocks reduces the power output gain. Water quality requirements, however, can be less stringent than those required for direct fog-cooling systems. Direct inlet fogging is a method of cooling where demineralized water is converted into a fog by means of high-pressure nozzles operating at 70200 bar. This fog then provides cooling when it evaporates in the air inlet duct of the gas turbine. This technique, in contrast to the traditional evaporative coolers, allows effectiveness close to 100% to be attained. An elaborate discussion on the aspects of direct inlet fogging can be found in Ref. 3 . A schematic layout of direct inlet fogging for a gas-turbine-based power plant is shown in Fig. 1. Evaporative cooling is the most commonly employed system for inlet air-cooling because of the simplicity of components and installation and the low equipment cost 4 . Unfortunately, the gain from the use of an evaporative cooler is limited by the difference between the dry and wet bulb temperatures, and it is high for dry ambient conditions, whereas the gain for wet ambient conditions is low. In order to further increase power augmentation, additional fog nozzles can be installed near the compressor intake. The water droplets evaporate mainly inside the compressor as the air is heated up during compression. These systems are called highfogging or wet-compression systems. About 6% power gain can be achieved for 1% water mass ow relative to compressor air mass ow 5 . Refrigeration Cooling. Refrigeration cooling is used when cooling below the wet bulb temperature is desired. Both mechanical and absorption refrigeration systems are available for gas turbine intake air-cooling. In a mechanical refrigeration system, the refrigerant vapor is compressed by means of a centrifugal, screw, or reciprocating compressor. Centrifugal compressors are typically used for large systems in excess of 1000 tons and are usually driven by an electric motor. Mechanical refrigeration has high auxiliary power consumption for the compressor driver. This is also a drawback during the peak hours of operation, when electricity demand reaches its maximum. Against it, absorption chillers exploit thermal energy from the turbine exhaust gases. Absorption chiller systems typically employ lithium-bromide Li-Br and water, with the Li-Br solution being the absorber and the water acting as the refrigerant. Such systems can typically produce chilled water of 67 C. Recent innovative designs are capable of producing chilled water at temperatures as low as 2 C 6 . Absorption systems can be designed to be either single or double effect. A single-effect system will have a coefcient of performance COP of 0.70.8 and a double-effect unit a COP of 1.2 1.3, also depending on the quality of the heat source. Part-load Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power

Fig. 2 Schematic layout of inlet aircooling with mechanical chiller and chilling coils

performance of absorption systems is relatively good and efciency does not drop off at part load as it does with mechanical refrigeration systems. Absorption systems also have lower operating and maintenance costs than mechanical refrigeration systems and very low auxiliary power consumption 7 . The refrigerant produced by the mechanical or absorption chillers is typically circulated to chilling coils at the gas turbine inlet, which cool down the intake air to 34 K higher than the refrigerant temperature. A schematic layout of this type of inlet air-cooling system for a gas-turbine-based power plant is shown in Fig. 2. A more innovative approach is the use of a direct-contact air-cooler, which allows a smaller temperature difference between chilled water and cooled air of the order of 12 K , as well as a lower inlet pressure drop with respect to the chilling coils 6 . A schematic layout of this type of inlet air-cooling system utilizing an absorption chiller is shown in Fig. 3. Evaporative Cooling of Precompressed Air. In this gas turbine inlet air-cooling method, an electrically driven fan is used for precompression of the inlet air supplied to the compressor of the gas turbine, resulting in a temperature rise of the intake air. The precompressed air is then cooled by an evaporative cooler. Evaporative cooling of precompressed air is quite effective because of the higher potential of evaporative cooling for the hotter precompressed airstream. This method can be applied to compensate for the reduction in the air mass ow as a consequence of high ambient temperatures. This can be achieved by controlling the pressure rise of the fan, so that the air mass ow at the inlet of the compressor is maintained largely constant, regardless of ambient conditions. Using this method, the gas turbine can be operated over a long period of time at its optimum operating point with regard to power output and efciency. Also, more heat can be recovered from the exhaust gases compared to the noncooled case. This means that, for a cogeneration system, steam production can be held constant to meet the required process steam demand. The maximum possible airow rate is limited by the exhaust condition for the turbine and ow conditions through the compressor surge

Fig. 3 Schematic layout of inlet airooling with absorption chiller and direct-contact air-cooler

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Table 1 Sample

ENBIPRO

power and efciency output le

Leistungen der einzelnen Arbeitsmaschinen Compressor: 0102 Gas Turbine: 0105 Steam Turbine: 0208 Elec. Drive Pump: 0212 Elec. Drive Pump: 0602 Elec. Drive Pump: 0702 Steam Turbine: 0714 Elec. Drive Pump: 0802 Steam Turbine: 0814 Final Results Gas-Turbine/Air-Compressor Block(s) Total available power Pgt - Pcmp : Compress.-turbine transm. gear losses 99.0% : GT-generator electrical losses 99.0% : Net Elect. power production from Gas Turbine: Net efciency ratio of gas turbine: Steam-Turbine Block(s) Total Available Power Pst : Turbine-Generator transm. gear losses 99.0% : ST-Generator electrical losses 99.0% : Net El. Power Production from Steam-Turbine: Net Efciency Ratio of Steam-Turbine: Auxilliary Equipment pumps, fans, etc. Calc. power consumption without losses : Electromechanical losses 99.0% : Total power consumption with losses : Complete Installation Total net electric power production: Combusted fuel total heating power: Installation net electric efciency ratio: 241.113 502.108 59.581 0.000 0.018 0.411 50.303 1.095 28.695 MW MW MW MW MW MW MW MW MW

Fig. 4 Schematic layout of evaporative cooling of precompressed air

limit . A description of the modeling of this system has been presented by Nixdorf et al. 8 . A schematic layout of evaporative cooling of precompressed air is shown in Fig. 4.

Gas-Turbine-Based Power Plant Test Cases

In order to examine the merits from integration of the different intake air-cooling methods described above for gas-turbine-based power plants, two combined cycle CC power plants and two gas turbine plants owned and operated by PPC have been selected as test cases for analysis. Lavrio IV CC power plant, installed close to Athens, has a gross capacity of 560 MWel and a net efciency of 50.8% at ISO conditions and consists of three 119 MWel European Gas Turbines SA Model BG-9171E gas turbines, three double-pressure heat recovery steam generators, and one 203 MWel steam turbine. Lavrio V CC will be installed during the several years and will be a 380-400 MWel single-shaft combined cycle. The simple cycle gas turbines selected as test cases are one 21.3 MWel ABB GT10 and one 31.5 MWelLM2500+ installed in the islands of Rhodes and Crete, respectively. The cycles have been simulated using the thermodynamic cycle calculation software ENBIPRO ENergie-BIllanz-PROgram 9 . ENBIPRO is a powerful tool for heat and mass balance solving of complex thermodynamic circuits, calculation of efciency, and exergetic and exergoeconomic analysis of power plants. The software code models all pieces of equipment that usually appear in power plant installations for both full-load and part-load operation and can accurately calculate all thermodynamic properties temperature, pressure, enthalpy at each node of the thermodynamic circuit, power consumption of each component, ue gas composition, etc. The code has proven its validity by accurately simulating a large number of power plants and through comparison of the results with other commercial software 10 . Table 1 presents an output le concerning power output and efciency calculations for Lavrio V. The effect of ambient temperature variation on the power output and efciency of each block has been accurately simulated with ENBIPRO by using the manufacturer data of the blocks that were provided by PPC. For the case of the Lavrio V CC, which will be installed during the next several years, manufacturer data for the 385 MWel GE S109FA single-shaft combined cycle have been used in the current study. The monthly full-load operating hours of the power plants have been estimated as shown in Table 2, using operating data provided by PPC. PPC has also provided mean monthly meteorological data relative temperature and humidity from the sites of installation. For the Lavrio combined cycles, typical meteorological year data with hourly values were available. Figure 5 presents the mean monthly dry and wet bulb temperatures for the power plant site in Crete. The relative humidity during the summer months is about 50%. Mean monthly values in the other plant sites are quite similar. As has been discussed previously, the integration of three different types of gas turbine intake air-cooling systems has been examined: evaporative cooling, refrigeration cooling, and evaporative cooling of precompressed air. In the calculations of direct inlet fogging, 95% effectiveness of the coolers is assumed and the intake air temperature is calculated from the wet bulb temperature derived from the values of ambient temperature and correspond314 / Vol. 128, APRIL 2006

260.995 MW 2.610 MW 2.584 MW 255.801 MW 37.226% 138.579 MW 1.386 MW 1.372 MW 135.821 MW 19.766% 1.524 MW 0.015 MW 1.539 MW 390.084 MW 687.149 MW 56.77%

ing relative humidity and the cooler effectiveness. Power consumption of the pumps utilized by the system has been taken into account. Concerning the refrigeration cooling method, both mechanical and absorption chiller have been studied. In each power plant test case, the chiller size is selected so that the mean monthly compressor intake air temperature can be maintained at a value of 5 C throughout the warmest month of the year. In this way, maximum additional electricity generation is achieved during the hot summer months, where electricity demand peaks are observed. The chiller sizes used in the calculations are summarized in Table 3. The same chiller size as for the LM 2500+ is required for the smaller capacity ABB GT 10, since it is a less efcient engine with approximately the same airow rate.

Table 2 Full-load operating hours of the blaocks Operating hours Months January February March April May June July August September October November December Total Lavrio IV, V 200 200 300 400 590 700 700 700 600 500 300 200 5390 ABB GT10, LM2500+ 0 0 0 0 0 700 700 700 700 0 0 0 2800

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Fig. 5 Monthly dry and wet bulb temperatures for the gas turbine power plant site in Crete

Fig. 6 Ambient and gas turbine inlet air temperature and inlet air pressure rise for the method of evaporative cooling of precompressed air, gas turbine power plant in Crete

The absorption chilling system examined in the current study is an innovative system consisting of a direct-contact air-cooler and a specially designed Li-Br absorption chiller, capable of lowering the intake air temperature to 5 C. The latter has been analyzed in detail by Bies et al. 1 and Kakaras et al. 11 , whereas alternative scenarios of usage of the system for various power plants, representative of different countries and different climatic conditions, have been presented in detail by Kakaras et al. 12 , demonstrating its potential. This air-cooling system has been successfully operated within a research and demonstration project 13 . Variation of the COP of mechanical chillers with cooling load was calculated on the basis of data found in Ref. 7 , whereas manufacturer data were available on heat consumption and the variation of COP versus load for the absorption chillers. In the combined cycle test cases, where ue gas exit temperature is low, absorption chillers are operated on steam of appropriate thermodynamic parameters extracted from the steam cycle of the power plant. In the simple cycle gas turbine test cases, ue gas from the turbine exhaust produces low-pressure steam in an additional ue gas heat exchanger, which is then used for the operation of the absorption chillers. Manufacturer data on the auxiliary consumption of the chillers were also available. The gas turbine inlet pressure drop resulting from the direct contact air-cooler is assumed 4 mbar and from the chilling coils used for the mechanical chillers as 10 mbar and have been taken into account for the estimation of the capacity gain from integration of the inlet air-cooling system. For simulation of the method of evaporative cooling of precompressed air, the required pressure rise from the fan was determined in dependency to ambient temperature and relative humidity, targeting an air mass ow equal to the mass ow corresponding to an ambient temperature of 5 C. The net power has been calculated by subtracting the power required for air precompression. Figure 6 presents the ambient and gas turbine inlet air temperature and the inlet air pressure rise, as calculated for the gas turbine power plant in Crete.

Results From Integration of the Inlet Air-Cooling Systems in the Power Plants
The operation of the plants with integration of the intake aircooling systems under consideration has been evaluated on a yearly basis of operation, using the mean monthly values of temperature and relative humidity available for the sites of installation and the monthly full-load operating hours of the power plants, as depicted in Table 2. Tables 47 present the monthly and annual increase in capacity from integration of the different cooling systems in the four power plants under study, whereas Table 8 presents the mean annual efciency for different intake air-cooling options. Integration of evaporative cooling of precompressed air has only been examined for the simple cycle gas turbines, to keep the size of the required fans in acceptable limits. In all the examined cases, the absorption intake air-cooling system demonstrates the highest gain in capacity, as well as an increase in efciency, except for the Lavrio IV case, where there is a slight decrease. According to the results, the gain in capacity when using evaporative cooling of precompressed air is much higher than simple evaporative cooling. The latter results in the lowest gain from the three air-cooling methods. Nevertheless, the efciency penalty in the case of evaporative cooling of precompressed air is remarkable.

Economic Performance of the Inlet Air-Cooling Systems

From the plant operators point of view, an important factor for deciding which system should be selected for intake air-cooling,
Table 4 Capacity gain in %, with respect to noncooled operation from integration of the different intake air-cooling options in Lavrio IV CC Month January February March April May June July August September October November December Mean annual Evaporative cooling 0.89 0.90 1.19 1.71 2.24 3.31 3.97 3.48 2.85 1.63 1.07 0.78 2.43 (13,226 kW) Absorption chiller 1.43 1.19 2.32 3.85 5.52 7.86 8.91 8.84 7.39 5.09 3.22 1.90 5.91 (32,171 kW) Compression chiller 0.65 0.41 1.56 3.10 4.74 7.08 8.12 8.05 6.61 4.32 2.47 1.15 5.13 (27,953 kW)

Table 3 Chiller sizes for the test cases Power plant Lavrio IV CC Lavrio V CC Rhodes ABB GT 10 Crete LM 2500+ Design cooling load [MW] 3 16 25 3 3

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Table 5 Capacity gain in percent, with respect to noncooled operation from integration of the different intake air-cooling options in Lavrio V CC Month January February March April May June July August September October November December Mean annual Evaporative cooling 0.41 0.38 0.73 1.42 2.28 4.03 5.08 4.56 3.43 1.66 0.84 0.45 2.75 (10,297 kW) Absorption chiller 0.26 0.12 0.83 2.14 3.96 7.07 8.58 8.65 6.46 3.52 1.57 0.54 4.86 (18,225 kW) Compression chiller 0.52 0.66 0.07 1.39 3.18 6.27 7.78 7.83 5.67 2.75 0.82 0.22 4.08 (15,282 kW)

Table 8 Mean annual efciency resulting from integration of the different intake air-cooling methods Lavrio IV Lavrio V ABB GT10 LM-2500+ Without cooling Evaporative cooling Absorption chiller Compression chiller Evaporative cooling of precompressed air 49.70 49.67 49.46 48.88 55.82 56.14 55.97 55.26 32.49 33.03 33.26 32.43 31.65 36.62 37.23 37.73 36.99 32.05

apart from the gain in electricity generation that has been presented in the previous section, is the economic performance of the investment. In order to assess the economic performance of the three gas turbine inlet air-cooling systems under consideration, the basic economic indicators of the investments, namely, the payback period PB and the total cost of incremental electricity generation
Table 6 Capacity gain in percent, with respect to noncooled operation from integration of the different intake air-cooling options in the ABB GT10 Evaporative cooling of Absorption Compression precompressed air chiller chiller 5.98 7.15 6.74 4.75 6.15 (1253 kW) 5.10 5.84 5.41 3.94 5.07 (1033 kW)

Month January February March April May June July August September October November December Mean annual

Evap. cooling

ICOE have been calculated. ICOE is calculated by dividing the difference in total electricity generation costs after and before integration of the gas turbine inlet air-cooling systems with the incremental electricity generation MWh due to integration of the cooling systems. PB is then obtained from the equation PB = Investment/ IEG POE ICOE . The mean fuel price and mean electricity selling price POE have been provided by the plants operator. The specic costs for each cooling system used in the calculations are presented in Table 9, as derived from a market survey. Table 10 presents the results of the economic assessment of the integration of the different intake air-cooling systems in the power plants under investigation in terms of mean annual gain in capacity, total cost of incremental electricity generation and PB of investment. In terms of the total cost of incremental electricity generation, the results demonstrate that the evaporative cooler has the lowest cost, followed by the absorption chiller. The highest electricity generation cost arises from integration of the evaporative cooling system of precompressed air, due to the high-efciency penalty related to operation of the air precompressor. The absorption cool-

4.30 9.43 4.91 10.96 4.45 10.59 3.08 8.21 4.18 9.80 (852 kW) (1995 kW)

Table 9 Specic costs for each cooling method in euro per kilowatt cooling load respectively, kilograms per second air mass ow for the fan Cooling method Evaporative cooling Compression chiller Absorption chiller Fan for air precompression Specic costs 60 / kWC 75 / kWC 250 / kWC 4500 / kg/ s

Table 7 Capacity gain in %, with respect ot noncooled operation from integration of the different intake air-cooling methods in the LM2500+ Evaporative cooling of Absorption Compression precompressed air chiller chiller 13.74 15.94 15.22 11.53 14.11 (3999 kW) 13.49 15.14 14.42 11.34 13.60 (3855 kW)

Table 10 Economics of the integration of the intake aircooling systems in Chania CCPP mean electricity selling price =88 euro/ MWh Capacity gain KW 13,226 32,171 27,953 10,297 18,225 15,282 852 1995 1253 1033 2088 4939 3999 3855 ICOE Euros/ MWh 35.76 37.92 46.96 24.39 29.20 39.03 58.92 74.06 103.05 155.08 67.62 71.01 81.58 194.43

Cooling system Lavrio IV evaporative cooling Lavrio IV absorption chiller Lavrio IV compression chiller Lavrio V evaporative cooling Lavrio V absorption chiller Lavrio V compression chiller ABB GT10 evaporative cooling ABB GT10 absorption chiller ABB GT10 compression chiller ABB GT10 evaporative cooling of precompressed air LM-2500+ evaporative cooling LM-2500+ absorption chiller LM-2500+ compression chiller LM-2500+ evaporative cooling of precompressed air

PB Years 0.2 1.4 0.6 0.1 1.1 0.5 0.5 9.6 0.3 3.2 3.1 -

Month January February March April May June July August September October November December Mean annual

Evap. cooling

7.52 16.94 8.72 19.35 7.89 18.67 5.35 14.72 7.37 17.42 (2088 kW) (4939 kW)

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ing system presents the highest capacity gain, but also the highest investment costs and, thus, PBs are much higher than evaporative systems and mechanical chillers. In deciding among the alternative options for gas turbine intake air-cooling, both the economics of the investment and the capacity gain have to be considered from the plant operator. In the abovepresented results, evaporative cooling is better in terms of total cost of incremental electricity generation and PB. If economics were the only consideration, the evaporative cooler would be the selected option. Yet, the absorption chiller system yields more than double the gain in mean annual capacity. This is an important parameter for a power producer in countries like Greece, since the summer period is when the electricity peak demand occurs and the additional capacity boost is strongly needed. It should also be mentioned here that all calculations have been conducted assuming that the electricity tariff is uniform throughout the year, as is currently the case in Greece. If the electricity tariff were higher for peak-demand periods, as may be the case in the future, the economics of the investment could prove more favorable for the absorption chiller. It can, therefore, be concluded that selection between the evaporative cooler and the absorption chiller system for boosting the performance of gas-turbine-based power plants merits close attention.

Acknowledgment
The current work has been conducted within the framework of the EU project EI/1105/98, The cooled gas turbinea demonstration of innovative gas turbine technology, and the assistance of EU is gratefully acknowledged.

Nomenclature
CC COP ICOE IEG Li-Br PB POE PPC Tambient Tcooled combined cycle coefcient of performance total cost of incremental electricity generation Incremental Electricity Generation lithium-bromide Payback period Mean electricity selling price Public Power Corporation of Greece ambient air temperature gas turbine inlet air temperature

References
1 Bies, D., Johanntgen, U., and Scharfe, J., 1999, Optimised Cooling of the Compressor Intake Air-A New Way for the Improvement of Power and Efciency in Gas Turbine Plants, Proc. of International Gas Turbine Congress, Kobe, Japan, pp. 429436. 2 Johnson, R. S., 1988, The Theory and Operation of Evaporative Coolers for Industrial Gas Turbine Installations, ASME Paper No. 88-GT-41. 3 Meher-Homji, C. B., 1999, Gas Turbine Power Augmentation by Fogging of Inlet Air, Proc. of 28th Turbomachinery Symposium, Turbomachinery Laboratory, College Station, TX, pp. 92113. 4 Kraneis, W., 2000, The Increased Importance of Evaporative Coolers for Gas Turbine and Combined-Cycle Power Plants, VGB PowerTech 2000, VGB, Essen, Vd. 9, pp. 3640. 5 Lecheler, S., and Hoffmann, J., 2003, The Power of Water in Gas Turbines: ALSTOMS Experience With Air Inlet Cooling, Proc. of PowerGen Latin America, Sao Paulo, PennWell, Tulsa, OK. 6 Bies, D., and Prelipceanu, A., 2003, Optimised Cooling of the Intake Air by Absorption Refrigeration Technology - An Innovative Technology to Improve Gas Turbine Performance, Proc. of 1 International Conference on Industrial Gas Turbine Technologies, European Communities, Brussels, pp. 460470. 7 Petchers, N., 2003, Combined Heating, Cooling & Power Handbook: Technologies and Applications, An Integrated Approach to Energy Resource Optimisation, Fairmont Press, Lilburn, GA. 8 Nixdorf, M., Prelipceanu, A., and Hein, D., 2002, Thermo-Economic Analysis of Inlet Air Conditioning Method of a Cogeneration Gas Turbine Plant, ASME Paper No. GT-2002-30561. 9 Stamatelopoulos, G. N., 1996, Berechnung und Optimierung von Kraftwerkskreislufen, VDI-Fortschrittsberichte Reihe 6, Nr. 340, Braunchweig. 10 Institut fr Wrme und Brennstofftechnik, TU Braunschweig, http:// www.wbt.ing.tu-bs.de. 11 Kakaras, E., Doukelis, A., and Karellas, S., 2004, Compressor Intake Air Cooling in Gas Turbine Plants, EnergyThe International J., 29 12-15 . 12 Kakaras, E., Doukelis, A., and Scharfe, J., 2001, Applications of Gas Turbine Plants With Cooled Compressor Intake Air, ASME Paper No. 2001-GT-110. 13 European Commission, 2003, The Cooled Gas Turbine-A Demonstration of Innovative Gas turbine Technology, Internal Technical Report, EI/1105/98 Thermie B, project funded by the European Commission.

Conclusions
In the current study, three different cooling methods for reducing the intake air temperature in gas-turbine-based power plants have been examined: evaporative cooling, refrigeration cooling, and evaporative cooling of precompressed air. Two combined cycle power plants and two gas turbine plants owned and operated by the Public Power Corporation of Greece PPC have been selected as test cases for analysis of the merits from integration of the different gas turbine intake air-cooling methods. Following the discussion on the different cooling methods, the results of the effect of integration of the inlet air-cooling systems under investigation on the operation of the selected power plants were presented and discussed. The calculations were performed on a yearly basis of operation and the time-varying climatic conditions were taken into account. Finally, the economics from integration of the different cooling systems were calculated and compared. The results have demonstrated that the highest incremental electricity generation is realised by absorption intake air-cooling. In terms of the economic performance of the investment, the evaporative cooler has the lowest total cost of incremental electricity generation and the lowest PB. Concerning the cooling method of precompressed air, the results show a signicant gain in capacity, but the total cost of incremental electricity generation in this case is the highest. Because of the much higher capacity gain by an absorption chiller system, the evaporative cooler and the absorption chiller system may both be selected for boosting the performance of gas-turbine-based power plants, depending on the prevailing requirements of the plant operator.

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