Rotating Equipment & Power Systems — Conceptual Planning Tool
Estimator for diesel & gas reciprocating engines, simple- and combined-cycle gas turbines, gas turbine and reciprocating engine CHP, and coal/gas/diesel Rankine steam cycles. Compare up to five configurations side by side on CAPEX, OPEX, LCOE, plot footprint, water balance, and stack emissions.
Applied uniformly across every configuration below. Adjust to match your project location and commercial fuel terms.
Override the built-in installed-cost benchmark ($/kW, at the 25 MW reference size — see Section 07) for any technology with your own project or vendor pricing. The override rescales that technology's CAPEX proportionally across all its fuel options and unit sizes; leave a field blank to keep the sourced default.
Select technology, fuel, and net electrical output for up to five configurations. Defaults show a typical industrial screening set — diesel ICE, gas GTG simple cycle, coal Rankine steam, and gas GTG combined cycle. Add a fifth slot for a CHP option (gas or diesel GTG/ICE with heat recovery).
Every CAPEX, O&M, heat rate, and emissions baseline in this tool is anchored to a specific value from one of the two primary sources below, then scaled to the selected unit size (below). Values you override in Section 02 replace these defaults in every calculation, chart, and table. Nothing here is a vendor quote — verify against OEM/EPC budgetary proposals before committing capital.
Diesel-fueled ICE and Rankine steam cases have no direct match in either source (EIA's scope is utility-scale gas/coal only; EPA's diesel data covers standby/emergency duty, not continuous baseload) — those rows use generic industry cost benchmarks and are flagged accordingly in the code comments. Circulating cooling-water flow rates (as opposed to net makeup water, which is EIA-sourced for coal) are planning-level rules of thumb, not literature values.
Each technology's CAPEX and fixed O&M are anchored at the source's reported plant size (e.g., 419 MW for the industrial-frame gas turbine), converted to an equivalent 25 MW reference value, then rescaled to your selected size using a power-law economy-of-scale curve (CAPEX ∝ (25/MW)0.25, Fixed O&M ∝ (25/MW)0.15), bounded to a realistic multiplier range. Variable O&M is treated as roughly size-independent on a $/MWh basis. LCOE = [ (CAPEX × Fixed Charge Rate) + Fixed O&M ] / Annual MWh + Variable O&M + Fuel Cost.
Diesel: 137,000 Btu/gal (HHV). Coal (bituminous): 24 MMBtu/ton (HHV). Natural gas priced directly in $/MMBtu (HHV, delivered pipeline basis, no gathering/compression included).
Air-cooled / radiator-cooled technologies (recip engines, simple-cycle GTGs) show minimal process makeup only. Combined-cycle and Rankine steam configurations assume an evaporative cooling tower. Coal makeup water is the EIA/S&L reported value (7,000 gpm at 650 MW ≈ 650 gal/MWh); other technologies' makeup and circulating-flow figures are planning-level estimates. Switching to an air-cooled condenser (ACC) for CC/Rankine can cut makeup water >90% at a CAPEX and heat-rate penalty — not modeled here.
NOx and PM factors represent typical controlled emission rates for each technology (SCR/oxidation catalyst on engines, dry-low-NOx or SCR on turbines, low-NOx burners + SCR + baghouse + WFGD on coal boilers, per the EIA/S&L Case 1 emissions basis) — not uncontrolled AP-42 defaults. CO₂ uses fuel carbon-content factors reported in the source documents: NG 117 lb/MMBtu and coal 206 lb/MMBtu (EIA/S&L, citing 40 CFR 98 Subpart C), diesel 160 lb/MMBtu (EPA CHP Catalog Sec. 2.5.1.4). SO₂, CO, VOC, and Hg are outside the scope of this tool.
For CHP configurations, the electric heat rate sets total fuel consumption and emissions; a thermal recovery fraction (fuel HHV recovered as usable steam/hot water, consistent with the 65–83% total-efficiency bands reported in the EPA CHP Catalog) is applied on top to report total fuel utilization and an "effective" CO₂ intensity normalized to combined electric + thermal output.
Includes power block, switchyard/interconnection pad, and a fixed balance-of-plant/laydown allowance. Coal plot size (0.615 ac/MW) is scaled from the EIA/S&L reported 400-acre greenfield footprint for the 650 MW reference plant, which includes coal handling/storage, ash handling, and cooling tower area.