The simple act of refurbishing the old with the new is in itself beneficial alongside the cost reduction for keeping the plant running.
[citation needed] Short-term options include retiring the plant or quick conversion to direct firing of the boiler with natural gas.
It's estimated that as much as 30 gigawatts (GW) of existing U.S. power generation capacity could be lost through plant closings due to new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations.
There could be a saving of 20 percent of the capital cost instead of building brand new power plants founded by EPRI studied.
The gas-fired turbine (GT) and the heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) technology has been in utilize in many repowering projects over the past 20 years in the United States alone.
With increasing environmental regulations of the United States Government and the lower fuel prices made the usage of GT/HRSG an option in utilizing to renew many old coal heating power plants.
Siemens Corporation are also using this technology by combining the gas turbine (GT) in conjunction with the heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) with the steam turbine (ST) and the combined cycle power plants to produce the most efficient power generation facilities.
Full powering replaces the original boiler and gas-turbine (GT) and heat recovery steam generator are added (HRSG).