The PUMP-HEAT project proposes innovations in the BoP of GT and CC layouts that enables up to 3% of annual reduction of OPEX, by integrating purposely developed HPs and Thermal Storage. These savings are mainly due to a reduction in fuel consumption, particularly at part-load, and to a reduction in maintenance costs avoiding 10-15 start-ups yearly (150 EOH in terms of wear), at the expense of increased CAPEX of 5% for power oriented CC plants and 11% for newly built CHP plants.

The PUMP-HEAT layout can be applied to the whole CC fleet, including new or existing plants, improving their power flexibility and efficiency at part load. It allows to manage fast load changes in a more efficient way and enlarges the power range at the highest efficiency level; minimum load and part load efficiencies are enhanced up to 15% in summer and 10% in winter. Thanks to the integration of HP and TES the CC can act as a “Smart Load”, selling/purchasing electricity for ancillary services.

The PUMP-HEAT layout enlarges the operational envelop of CC and GT plants at high efficiency levels, strengthening their presence as back-up actors in the current electrical market, enabling them to make more competitive offers in the day-ahead electrical market and allowing to be more reactive to meet the grid requests and fluctuations, thanks to the reduction in number of start-ups.. PUMP-HEAT is an easy replicable solution that can be coupled with any other technique, which acts on the Gas turbine or Combined Cycle to increase plant flexibility.

The integration of HP and TE, increases the efficiency of the plant both at minimum and part-load (with a reduction of fuel consumption of 10% in winter season) and at maximum load (enlarging the possibility of the plant to operate at nominal efficiency values from 100% down to 85% of its load). The reduction of the start-ups and heavy ramp-ups allows a saving of up to 40000 Sm3 of NG per start-up (for a 400 MW CC), avoiding the most critical operating conditions in terms of pollutants, reducing the wear of the whole plant and the duty of the environmental control components.

The PUMP-HEAT solution acts in parallel to the traditional layout of GT and CC plants, without modifying the combustion process or the exhausts treatment of the plant, maintaining the possibility of coupling a CO2 capture system to the power plant.