Power Plant Synthesis

Reviews / Votes

"As Katsaprakakis makes clear in his preface and first chapter, modern society would be impossible without the large-scale conversion of naturally occurring energy to forms useful to humans-primarily, forms of electricity. After centuries of producing energy from fossil fuels, power plants are now moving toward renewable energy sources (RES), such as wind and solar power. Katsaprakakis acknowledges and embraces this trend in his text, especially through its detailed presentation of "hybrid" installations primarily in and around Europe, which rely on renewables as the primary source and resort to fossil fuels only as backup. Coverage of technologies, economics, and auxiliary topics, such as topography suitable for energy-storage reservoirs and the interpretation of daily usage data, is encyclopedic. Katsaprakakis' consulting experience allows him to give step-by-step design and operation instructions for a variety of actual cases. He writes at a more general level than authors of comparable works, which focus more on technical hardware details. By contrast, Katsaprakakis adopts a more black box or holistic approach. The text is written in a functional and readable style and should be useful especially to practitioners designing new hybrid plants."

K. D. Stephan, Texas State University, USA