Energy and Exergy Analysis of an Al-Hussein Steam Power Plant in Jordan Using Engineering Equation Solver (EES)

Abstract

This study independently reproduces the energy and exergy analysis of the Al-Hussein steam power plant in Jordan using Engineering Equation Solver (EES) under the same operating conditions and reference environment (298.15 K, 101.3 kPa) reported in the original work. The reproduced thermodynamic properties and component energy balance show close agreement with the published results, confirming the robustness of the first-law analysis. In contrast, the exergy results reveal notable deviations in specific components: the condenser exergy destruction is calculated as 18.03 MW (vs 13.74 MW reported), yielding a markedly lower condenser exergy efficiency (3.40%), while LPH5 exhibits a higher exergy efficiency (82.34% vs 67.3%). The distribution of irreversibilities indicates that the boiler remains the dominant source of exergy destruction (74.55% of the total), followed by the turbine (12.83%) and condenser (11.13%), highlighting the boiler as the primary target for performance improvement. These findings demonstrate that independent computational reproduction can confirm energy results while revealing sensitivity of component-level exergy metrics to modelling assumptions, improving the reliability of exergy-based performance assessments.