The paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the thermodynamic concept of heat regeneration in steam power plants with a finite number of bleedings. A regenerative Rankine cycle is compared to a complex system (CHC - complete hybrid cycle) composed by one non-regenerative Rankine cycle (HEC - hybrid engine cycle) and more reverse cycles (RCs - reverse cycles), as many as the number of the bleedings, able to pump heat from the condenser to a series of surface feedwater heaters, disposed upstream of the steam plant boiler. The COPs (coefficients of performance) of the heat pumps are evaluated, and new interesting formulations of the efficiency of the regenerative steam cycle are proposed. In particular a steam cycle with two bleedings is analyzed, neglecting heat losses and pressure drops in the boiler and considering irreversibility only along the expansion line of the steam turbine and into the feedwater heaters. The efficiency and the work of the regenerative cycle are compared to the analogous values of the CHC cycle composed by one simple steam cycle (HEC) and two heat pump cycles (RCs), with steam as the working fluid. The two reverse cycles are considered completely reversible and raising heat from the condenser temperature to the bled steam condensing temperature. The paper shows the most significant results of the study in order to analyze the regenerative cycle and the CHC cycle in comparison with the non-regenerative Rankine cycle: in particular, the analysis is focused on the evaluation of the useful work, the heat supplied and the heat rejected for the examined cycles. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.