Minimizing production costs in generation and cogeneration plants

Technological advances, the shift towards deregulation and anti-pollution regulation are bringing dramatic changes in the power generation field. Power and heat are increasingly perceived as products to be sold and bought on the basis of cost/profit considerations in a fast changing market. This requires a substantial effort in the field of economic optimisation of plant management, since solutions based on conventional wisdom or past practice are no longer adequate. Due to the complexity of the factors involved, model-based decision support systems are needed for this task. These issues are discussed with reference to two radically different but equally representative examples.