Patent ID: 7383167

Claim:
A modular method of modeling a power plant, the power plant comprising a plurality of major components including at least one of a gas turbine, a heat recovery steam generator, a steam turbine, and a condenser/cooling tower, said method comprising: selecting a plurality of major component modules' models from a library of component module models for each major component of the power plant, each major component module representing a power plant major component of a unique configuration; inputting initial model information into a database for the major component selected modules by inputting the initial model information into a spread sheet associated with each selected major component module, the initial model information including at least one of operating parameters, design data, convergence criteria, and a maximum number of passes; running each selected major component module and enabling data exchange between the selected major component modules, wherein running each selected major component module comprises running the selected major component modules successively one module at a time and passing the results from one module to the next module in succession until interface conditions converge or until a predetermined maximum number of iterative passes are completed; and generating a result that indicates the performance of the major components of the power plant.