Diesel Power Plant: Applications, Advantages and Disadvantages

Applications:

Diesel Power Plant finds wide application in the following fields:

1. Diesel power plant is used for electrical power generation in capacities ranging from 100 to 5000 H.P.
2. They are commonly used for mobile power generation and are widely used in transportation systems consisting of railroads, ships, automobiles, and airplanes.
3. They can be used as standby power plants.
4. They can be utilized as peak load plants for some other types of power plants.
5. For Industries where power requirement is small in the order of 500 kW, diesel power plants become more economical due to higher overall efficiency

Advantages:

The advantages of diesel power plants are listed below:

1. Diesel power plant design is simple for installation.
2. The layout of the diesel power plant is quite simple.
3. The limited quantity of cooling water required.
4. Standby losses are very less as compared to other Power plants.
5. Low fuel cost for operation.
6. Smaller storage is needed for the fuel.
7. There is no problem of ash handling.
8. Less time monitoring is sufficient required.
9. For small capacity power generation, diesel power plant is more efficient than the steam power plant.
10. Quickly started and put on load.
11. They can respond to varying loads without having any difficulty.

Disadvantages:

The disadvantages of diesel power plants are listed below:

1. High Maintenance and operating cost.
2. The plant cost per kW power is comparatively more.
3. The working life of diesel power plant is small due to high maintenance.
4. The plant produces too much noise.
5. Diesel power plants are tough to construct for large scale.