A new approach to optimizing energy systems Original Research Article

Flow-sheet programs used for the design of power plants become more meaningful with use of optimization possibilities. As the power plant is considered to be a black-box for an optimization routine, many evaluations of the plant efficiency, as a function of the chosen parameter (or parameters), have to be considered. As optima are often in a flat part of the efficiency curve, as a function of the parameters, a disturbance in the calculation might lead to no found optimum at all for the optimization routine. Two calculation routines are compared to operate with the program Cycle-Tempo: a Quasi-Newton and a Derivative Free optimization routine. From these two the latter experienced to be the most stable, although the former can be improved compared to the way it is in use now.