Air pollution modeling for power plant site selection

Abstract

The proper siting of newly planned industries is one of the major pollution prevention measures that can ensure environmental soundness of industrial development. It is the site characteristics that ultimately determine the impact on airshed that might be affected by air pollutants. Site selection based on environmental criteria with the objective to minimizing adverse impacts, is therefore, a vital prerequisite. The available mathematical modeling techniques for estimation of potential air quality impacts due to the location any industry is a primary analytical tool that helps in site selection. This paper presents prediction of the impact on air quality of two naphtha/natural gas fired combined cycle power plants having identical air emissions but located in a coastal area and in an inland area, which have considerable variation in topography and meteorology. Model results have indicated that at the inland site, the pollutant concentrations are high as compared to the coastal site but cooling water discharges may cause significant adverse impacts on marine environment. Thus, it is concluded that while selecting a site, detailed site specific investigations should be conducted in order to achieve least possible ambient ground level concentration.

Keywords:

• Air quality impact
• Mathematical modeling
• Naphtha/natural gas based combined cycle power plant
• Regulatory standard

Acknowledgement

The authors grateful to the Director, NEERI, Nagpur (India) for encouragement and kind permission to publish this paper.