Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Gas turbine power plants are sensitive to ambient air temperature and their exergy sustainability indices have been a concern because of their environmental impact and the recent rise in fuel cost. Hence, the challenge of ambient air temperature with the exergy sustainability performance of gas turbine power plants needs to be investigated. Consequently, this study evaluates the impact of ambient air temperature on exergy sustainability and ecological function of a 153 MW gas turbine power plant using the power plant operating data with MATLAB software. The outcomes indicate that the combustor has the least improvement potential, relative irreversibility and lack of productivity compared to other components studied. Also, the average fuel depletion number, sustainability index, waste exergy ratio, exergy destruction factor, environment effect factor and ecological function values obtained were 0.490, 2.046, 0.717, 0.489, 1.403 and –108.082 MW respectively. Furthermore, the results indicated that for a 1 °C increase in ambient air temperature, 1.51%, 0.693%, 1.505%, 1.924% and 9.102% increase were observed in fuel depletion number, waste exergy ratio, exergy destruction factor, environmental effect factor and ecological function respectively. Thus, this study established that the power plant's exergy sustainability performance has a negative impact at high ambient air temperatures.
Egware et al. (Mon,) studied this question.