By Greg Alder | Published in Valve Magazine

One of the largest controllable losses in power plants is leakage-based energy loss.

For plants using combined cycles, the losses can be even greater since the overall cycle efficiency is based on excess energy used via a steam turbine cycle to generate electricity—energy that can be lost through leaks. The energy losses from these undetected leaks also damage the affected valves continuously, which increases the leakage and the losses in generation, and often the overall heat rate in the valve system. All those factors potentially lead to early failure or even forced outage for maintenance and replacement.

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his article originally appeared in the December 2019 issue of VALVE Magazine, published by the Valve Manufacturers Association (www.vma.org)