This paper introduces a series of papers representing the continuation of a project begun with two papers (parts 1 and 2) presented at ECOS 2002, aiming at showing the capabilities of the thermoeconomic approach to solve the diagnosis problem. In the previous papers, the diagnosis problem was defined and the general thermoeconomic approach discussed using a combined cycle power plant as a test case. The aim of these five papers is to present the state of the art of thermoeconomic diagnosis. Both theoretical aspects and the application to real plants are discussed. The core of a real diagnosis system is the procedure for the analysis of the operating data. Different diagnosis procedure are discussed in detail in the accompanying papers. In this first paper, two operating conditions of the test case plant are provided for this goal: an operating condition obtained by simulating the presence of several anomalies and a reference condition without anomalies. In the accompanying papers, the different procedures are applied to the problem introduced here.
