in power generation (say heat to electricity) the highest efficient system not always provide the high throughput and vise versa. in this scenario is there any rational way of deciding what efficiency and throughput the system should have? Can we use the minimum unit energy cost as the rationale? in this case too it may not provide the targeted throughput.
It's an optimization on system level. You have operational cost of all systems together. To minimize them it can happen that some of the systems are not working in there optimal working area, however on system level you have the minimal costs.
Besides the costs you have the technical matters to consider. Lines, transformers, etc can handle a certain load. So ideally generation and consumption is close to each other and shall be balanced.
There are many factors, books could be written, but main could be availability of cheap fuel and fixed investment for generation...
Dear Shehan,
I would like to agree with my colleagues above. It is the cost of generating one energy unit, that is for example one KWH. In some cases, some factors may not directly included in the cost such as the time of production such as the maximum load hour. In order to satisfy the demand in this hour with the highest efficiency you have to build additional production capacity. Another factor that may not be considered directly in the cost is the environmental loading of producing the energy such that the emission of CO2 and other harmful substances in the environment. The behavior of generating systems is that increasing the throughput beyond that corresponding to the highest efficiency will cause more losses in the system which means more environmental loading.
I think increasing the capacity on the cost of optimum efficiency is not good strategy for the energy generation system. I believe that sacrificing the efficiency for throughput may not be a good solution for the energy generation system. I think that the engineers must stick on operating the systems at their highest efficiency.
Best wishes
The main challenge is coupled to the fact that the highest efficiency is usually achieved for a certain point (or söcomparably narrow band) of load. Below and above efficiency decreases.
Thus a reasonable design should strive for highest efficiency for the nominal load. The next challenge is to have the power plant operating in this band most of the time.
These (and further) facts and considerations are the reason why we have the "grid" connecting quite different sources of power - rather than n copies of the ever same plant.
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