Performance improvement of a Romanian cogeneration plant through optimal coverage of heat load

The energy supplier analyzed in this paper has 2 Rolls-Royce engines (M1&M2), running on natural gas, and producing 6.8 MWe of power and 5.6 MWth of heat each. In order to cover the heat demand during winter, the plant functions with both M1&M2 and one of the two hot water boilers (HB), the new one 58MWt or the old one 29MWt. One major problem consists in large and often variations of the heat demand, which occur in the warm season and impose frequent modification of the operating loads. The aim of the paper is to optimize the operating regimes of the plant. The functioning characteristics at partial loads of the two engines were determined, based on the manufacturers' data, and the data measured at different partial loads.