The Electric Power Industry

In this chapter we present an overview of the development of today?>s electric power industry, including the regulatory and historical evolution of the industry as well as the technical side of power generation. Included is enough thermodynamics to understand basic heat engines and how that all relates to modern steam-cycle, gas-turbine, combined-cycle, and cogeneration power plants. A first-cut at evaluating the most cost-effective combination of these various types of power plants in an electric utility system is also presented.