Thermal power generation projects face tougher requirements than ever: volatile fuel prices, the need for higher operational flexibility, and increasingly strict environmental constraints. Whether you are planning a new build, an upgrade, or troubleshooting an existing unit, accurate heat balance and performance modelling is essential.
We provide engineering services and tools for a wide range of plant configurations. Our approach helps you build reliable heat and mass balance models (also known as mass and energy balances) to predict plant performance and support design decisions across all major thermal power plant types used in power generation.
Conventional steam plants
Conventional steam power plants are generally fired by coal or biomass. The most complex equipment models are typically the boilers, steam turbines and condensers.
Combined cycles
A combined-cycle plant couples two thermodynamic cycles in series so that the topping cycle generates power at the highest available temperature level, and the remaining heat is then recovered to drive a secondary bottoming cycle for additional power. The topping cycle is often a gas turbine coupled to a heat-recovery steam generator (HRSG) to generate steam from the turbine exhaust gas. The steam then generates power by expanding through a steam turbine. Instead of a gas turbine, the topping cycle can also be a combustion engine.
Cogeneration systems, gas turbine plants and industrial power supply
Industrial and cogeneration processes refer to systems where the primary process outputs are not restricted to electrical generation. Steam is often exported from cogen plants for use in industrial processes.
Heat and mass balance software
A heat and mass balance (or mass and energy balance) model is a key success factor for combined-cycle power plant projects and other thermal power generation assets. In early project phases, engineers need to confirm whether performance requirements are achievable and which design choices (HRSG configuration, steam conditions, condenser pressure, equipment sizing) most strongly influence outcomes. This is where combined-cycle power plant design software and robust heat balance calculation capability become critical.
At later stages - commissioning, upgrades, and operations - an accurate performance model of the combined-cycle, the cogeneration system or the industrial plant is needed to identify operational limits, evaluate constraints, and determine optimum operating points under changing boundary conditions (ambient temperature, fuel composition, part-load operation, export steam demand, and emission limits).
Our Integrated Process Simulation Environment IPSE is the ideal software platform for creating heat balance models, mass balance models, and performance simulations for all kinds of thermal power plants, including combined-cycle plants, steam plants, gas turbine plants, and cogeneration (CHP) systems. Its fully flexible modelling approach enables users to perform heat and mass balance calculations and build plant-wide performance models that support design, optimization, and operational decision-making across the full lifecycle of thermal power generation projects.
