Energy for Sustainable Society

7Thermal Power Generation

Mount Storm coal fired power plant located in Grant County West Virginia, near Bismarck. The facility, with 1.629‐MW generation capacity, consumes on average 15,000 tons of bituminous coal and 700 tons of limestone per day.

The facility is owned and operated by Dominion Energy, has three units which started commercial operation in 1965, 1966, and 1973, and is located on the west bank of the 1200‐acre Mount Storm lake which was built to provide cooling water for the station. The lake, which remains at significantly high temperatures due to the energy discharged from the power station, is also used for recreational activities such as fishing and scuba diving.

Source: Dominion Energy web site https://www.dominionenergy.com (accessed on 9/28/2019).

Source: © H&O Soysal

7.1 Introduction

Thermal power generation involves conversion of heat into mechanical work, which may be used directly or converted into electric energy. Many industrial plants produce mechanical work for their operations directly by using steam and gas turbines. Electrothermal power generation is based on converting heat into electricity using an electric generator driven by a heat engine, which converts thermal energy (heat) into useful mechanical work. All electric generation facilities using fossil fuels, biomass, waste, geothermal energy, nuclear energy, and concentrated solar energy ...