Virginia attorney Bradford Jacob serves as the president of EPC Consulting, LLC, a consultancy serving clients in the oil, gas, chemical, construction, and energy industries. Among other services, Bradford Jacob of Virginia has negotiated energy contracts worth, in aggregate, a total of more than $50 billion, some of which concern combined-cycle power plants.

1. HOW DOES A COMBINED-
CYCLE POWER PLANT
GENERATE
ELECTRICITY?
Bradford Jacob, Virginia

2. Introduction
 Virginia attorney Bradford Jacob serves as the president of EPC
Consulting, LLC, a consultancy serving clients in the oil, gas,
chemical, construction, and energy industries. Among other
services, Bradford Jacob of Virginia has negotiated energy
contracts worth, in aggregate, a total of more than $50 billion, some
of which concern combined-cycle power plants.
As compared to a simple-cycle power plant, which generates
electricity from a gas-fueled turbine, a combined-cycle power plant
produces as much as 50 percent more electricity using the same
amount of fuel. To achieve these results, it relies on a three-step
process:
1. Burning fuel. As with a simple-cycle plant, a gas turbine in a
combined-cycle plant compresses air, then heats it and blasts it
through the turbine’s blades, causing them to spin rapidly. The
spinning drives a generator that converts the resulting energy into
electricity.

3. Combined-Cycle Power Plant
 2. Capturing exhaust. A heat-recovery steam
generator, which is a system unique to a
combined-cycle plant, captures exhaust heat
released by the gas turbine. The system takes
the exhaust and subsequently turns it into
steam, which it then sends to a steam turbine.
3. Creating additional electricity. Powered
by the steam, the steam turbine delivers
energy to the draft shaft of the generator,
where the resulting conversion yields
additional electricity.