HOW THERMAL POWER WORKS

Fossil fuels (gas or coal) are fed into power stations and burnt inside a massive water boiler. Each of the boilers at a power station are as high as an eight-storey building (referred to as generating units), and inside, walls of steel tubes extend for the full height of the structure. The heat produced by the burning coal or gas raises the temperature of water flowing through the tubes, to create steam that passes out of the boiler drum. The steam is heated further in the superheaters and fed through high-pressure pipes to the steam turbine. At this point, the steam reaches a temperature of 541°C and a pressure of 17 megapascals (MPa) and this causes the turbine to rotate at 3,000 revolutions per minute (RPM), which ultimately enables the generator to produce electricity.

After steam passes through the turbine, it goes to the condenser. Water circulating through tubes in the condenser cools the steam down and converts it back into water. This water is pumped back to the boiler, and the process of creating steam starts all over again. It is the hyperbolic shape of the towers that creates a natural flow of air from the base of the tower to the top. It’s this air flow that cools the hot circulating water as it falls from the ‘hot pond’ to the ‘cold pond’ at the bottom. The absorbed heat from the water is then released into the atmosphere in the form of fog-like water vapor.

In order to supply the national grid, a transformer steps up the power which is the final step in the process from coal, to steam, to turbines, to the grid.