The adoption of “supercritical cycles” for thermal plants on a wide scale has the ability to improve overall
system efficiency. Steam cycles for supercritical application operate at very high pressures & temperatures. These
are thus characterized by features that take full advantage of the advanced steam parameters, contributing to higher
system efficiency. The factors that contribute to the higher cycle efficiencies are higher expansion in turbines, more
stages of feed heating &higher input levels to boilers. To take full advantage of these features, all the components of
the steam turbine cycle are optimally designed to take advantage of these elevated parameters. Additionally, these
cycles are built considering large size machines, typically above 500MW to take full advantage of economies of
scale, thus reducing “Footprint” per megawatt generated. Super critical steam parameters