Combined Cycle Dominates New Power Generation

They should put these in the cities and further extract heat out for space heating and domestic hot water. Buildings in the immediate vicinity could be plumbed to take the condenser heat. Still would need alternate heat rejection in warmer weather of course.

That is taking the cycle beyond combined cycle, and off into the vast region known as cogeneration, where there is some field experience, but not many applications in the field.

Another thing is that the typical combined cycle is not as fast start as people think, since one must build up the head of steam before the steam side of the cycle is operating, but the gas turbine ramp up is fairly quick, but also depends on the steaming ramp of the HRSG, how long the steam turbine needs to be rolled during its warm up, etc.

People have looked at using SCC (supercritical carbon dioxide), and the first plants are being built. Much higher simple cycle efficiency, and if fronted by an air separation plant, there is no emissions (within practical limits) as far as NOx, SOx, CO2, etc. The only by-products are condensed pure water, and food-grade carbon dioxide, and a bit of waste heat that could be utilized by district heating needs.

Combined cycle improve plant efficiency. It is also required to study the feasibility to use waste heat for HVAC purpose using VA technology as conventional AC equipment consumes substantial amount of energy.