I am consulting for a biomass power plant and design condenser pressure is 175mbar absolute pressure. The plant has a 3 stage steam ejector for air removal with a capacity of 15kg/h of air removal and ejector design suction pressure of 2" Hg. Even under 70% load conditions, the condenser pressure is about 600mbar. I am proposing adding a liquid ring vacuum pump to improve condenser pressure to specification level and also to increase turbine efficiency. This power plant is now burning about 2.5MT of biomass per MWh of electricity produced so there seems a lot is wrong with this plant. The cooling tower is not functioning well and we are suggesting modifications to improve heat rejection but even we lowered condenser cooling water inlet temperature we have not seen any improvement in fuel consumption. Would you agree that the most likely cause of this is the very high pressure in the condenser now? Also if we go from 600mbar absolute to 175mbar absolute, what would the expect improvement in efficiency be? Thank you in advance for the help!
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