scholarly journals Thermodynamic Optimization of a Waste Heat Power System under Economic Constraint

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 3388
Author(s):  
Liya Ren ◽  
Jianyu Liu ◽  
Huaixin Wang

A novel thermo-economic performance indicator for a waste heat power system, namely, MPC, is proposed in this study, which denotes the maximum net power output with the constraint of EPC ≤ EPC0, where EPC is the electricity production cost of the system and EPC0 refers to the EPC of conventional fossil fuel power plants. The organic and steam Rankine cycle (ORC, SRC) systems driven by the flue gas are optimized to maximize the net power output with the constraint of EPC ≤ EPC0 by using the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II). The optimization process entails the design of the heat exchangers, the instantaneous calculation of the turbine efficiency, and the system cost estimation based on the Aspen Process Economic Analyzer. Six organic fluids, n-butane, R245fa, n-pentane, cyclo-pentane, MM (Hexamethyldisiloxane), and toluene, are considered for the ORC system. Results indicate that the MPC of the ORC system using cyclo-pentane is 39.7% higher than that of the SRC system under the waste heat source from a cement plant with an initial temperature of 360 °C and mass flow rate of 42.15 kg/s. The precondition of the application of the waste heat power system is EPC ≤ EPC0, and the minimum heat source temperatures to satisfy this condition for ORC and SRC systems are obtained. Finally, the selection map of ORC versus SRC based on their thermo-economic performance in terms of the heat source conditions is provided.

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 4623 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liya Ren ◽  
Huaixin Wang

Compared with the basic organic and steam Rankine cycles, the organic trans-critical cycle (OTC), steam flash cycle (SFC) and steam dual-pressure cycle (SDC) can be regarded as the improved cycle configurations for the waste heat power recovery since they can achieve better temperature matching between the heat source and working fluid in the heat addition process. This study investigates and compares the thermodynamic performance of the OTC, SFC, and SDC based on the waste heat source from the cement kiln with an initial temperature of 320 °C and mass flow rate of 86.2 kg/s. The effects of the main parameters on the cycle performance are analyzed and the parameter optimization is performed with net power output as the objective function. Results indicate that the maximum net power output of SDC is slightly higher than that of SFC and the OTC using n-pentane provides a 19.74% increase in net power output over the SDC since it can achieve the higher use of waste heat and higher turbine efficiency. However, the turbine inlet temperature of the OTC is limited by the thermal stability of the organic working fluid, hence the SDC outputs more power than that of the OTC when the initial temperature of the exhaust gas exceeds 415 °C.


Author(s):  
Shengwei Huang ◽  
Chengzhou Li ◽  
Tianyu Tan ◽  
Peng Fu ◽  
Gang Xu ◽  
...  

In this paper, an improved system to efficiently utilize the low-temperature waste heat (WHUS) from the flue gas of coal-fired power plants is proposed based on heat cascade. The essence of the proposed system is that the waste heat of exhausted flue gas is not only used to preheat air for assisting coal combustion as usual but also to heat up feedwater and the low-pressure steam extraction. Preheated by both the exhaust flue gas in the boiler island and the low-pressure steam extraction in the turbine island, thereby part of the flue gas heat in the air preheater can be saved and introduced to heat the feedwater and the high-temperature condensed water. Consequently, part of the high-pressure steam is saved for further expansion in the steam turbine, which obtains additional net power output. Based on the design data of a typical 1000 MW ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plant in China, in-depth analysis of the energy-saving characteristics of the optimized WHUS and the conventional WHUS is conducted. When the optimized WHUS is adopted in a typical 1000 MW unit, net power output increases by 19.51 MW, exergy efficiency improves to 45.46%, and net annual revenue reaches 4.741 million USD. In terms of the conventional WHUS, these aforementioned performance parameters are only 5.83 MW, 44.80% and 1.244 million USD, respectively. The research of this paper can provide a feasible energy-saving option for coal-fired power plants.


Author(s):  
Fredrik Ahlgren ◽  
Maria E. Mondejar ◽  
Magnus Genrup ◽  
Marcus Thern

Maritime transportation is a significant contributor to SOx, NOx and particle matter emissions, even though it has a quite low CO2 impact. New regulations are being enforced in special areas that limit the amount of emissions from the ships. This fact, together with the high fuel prices, is driving the marine industry towards the improvement of the energy efficiency of current ship engines and the reduction of their energy demand. Although more sophisticated and complex engine designs can improve significantly the efficiency of the energy systems in ships, waste heat recovery arises as the most influent technique for the reduction of the energy consumption. In this sense, it is estimated that around 50% of the total energy from the fuel consumed in a ship is wasted and rejected in fluid and exhaust gas streams. The primary heat sources for waste heat recovery are the engine exhaust and the engine coolant. In this work, we present a study on the integration of an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) in an existing ship, for the recovery of the main and auxiliary engines exhaust heat. Experimental data from the operating conditions of the engines on the M/S Birka Stockholm cruise ship were logged during a port-to-port cruise from Stockholm to Mariehamn over a period of time close to one month. The ship has four main engines Wärtsilä 5850 kW for propulsion, and four auxiliary engines 2760 kW used for electrical consumers. A number of six load conditions were identified depending on the vessel speed. The speed range from 12–14 knots was considered as the design condition, as it was present during more than 34% of the time. In this study, the average values of the engines exhaust temperatures and mass flow rates, for each load case, were used as inputs for a model of an ORC. The main parameters of the ORC, including working fluid and turbine configuration, were optimized based on the criteria of maximum net power output and compactness of the installation components. Results from the study showed that an ORC with internal regeneration using benzene would yield the greatest average net power output over the operating time. For this situation, the power production of the ORC would represent about 22% of the total electricity consumption on board. These data confirmed the ORC as a feasible and promising technology for the reduction of fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of existing ships.


Author(s):  
Junjie Yan ◽  
Xiaoqu Han ◽  
Jiahuan Wang ◽  
Ming Liu ◽  
Sotirios Karellas

Lignite is a domestic strategic reserve of low rank coals in many countries for its abundant resource and competitive price. Combustion for power generation is still an important approach to its utilization. However, the high moisture content always results in low efficiencies of lignite-direct-fired power plants. Lignite pre-drying is thus proposed as an effective method to improve the energy efficiency. The present work focuses on the flue gas pre-dried lignite-fired power system (FPLPS), which is integrated with fan mill pulverizing system and waste heat recovery. The thermo-economic analysis model was developed to predict its energy saving potential at design conditions. The pre-drying upgrade factor was defined to express the coupling of pre-drying system with boiler system and the efficiency improvement effect. The energy saving potential of the FPLPS, when applied in a 600 MW supercritical power unit, was determined to be 1.48 %-pts. It was concluded that the improvement of boiler efficiency mainly resulted from the lowered boiler exhaust temperature after firing pre-dried low moisture content lignite and the lowered dryer exhaust gas temperature after pre-heating the boiler air supply. Keywords: lignite; pre-drying; thermodynamic analysis; thermo-economics


2013 ◽  
Vol 597 ◽  
pp. 45-50
Author(s):  
Sławomir Smoleń ◽  
Hendrik Boertz

One of the key challenges on the area of energy engineering is the system development for increasing the efficiency of primary energy conversion and use. An effective and important measure suitable for improving efficiencies of existing applications and allowing the extraction of energy from previously unsuitable sources is the Organic Rankine Cycle. Applications based on this cycle allow the use of low temperature energy sources such as waste heat from industrial applications, geothermal sources, biomass, fired power plants and micro combined heat and power systems.Working fluid selection is a major step in designing heat recovery systems based on the Organic Rankine Cycle. Within the framework of the previous original study a special tool has been elaborated in order to compare the influence of different working fluids on performance of an ORC heat recovery power plant installation. A database of a number of organic fluids has been developed. The elaborated tool should create a support by choosing an optimal working fluid for special applications and become a part of a bigger optimization procedure by different frame conditions. The main sorting criterion for the fluids is the system efficiency (resulting from the thermo-physical characteristics) and beyond that the date base contains additional information and criteria, which have to be taken into account, like environmental characteristics for safety and practical considerations.The presented work focuses on the calculation and optimization procedure related to the coupling heat source – ORC cycle. This interface is (or can be) a big source of energy but especially exergy losses. That is why the optimization of the heat transfer between the heat source and the process is (besides the ORC efficiency) of essential importance for the total system efficiency.Within the presented work the general calculation approach and some representative calculation results have been given. This procedure is a part of a complex procedure and program for Working Fluid Selection for Organic Rankine Cycle Applied to Heat Recovery Systems.


Entropy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (12) ◽  
pp. 1143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Fontaine ◽  
Takeshi Yasunaga ◽  
Yasuyuki Ikegami

Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) uses the natural thermal gradient in the sea. It has been investigated to make it competitive with conventional power plants, as it has huge potential and can produce energy steadily throughout the year. This has been done mostly by focusing on improving cycle performances or central elements of OTEC, such as heat exchangers. It is difficult to choose a suitable heat exchanger for OTEC with the separate evaluations of the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop that are usually found in the literature. Accordingly, this paper presents a method to evaluate heat exchangers for OTEC. On the basis of finite-time thermodynamics, the maximum net power output for different heat exchangers using both heat transfer performance and pressure drop was assessed and compared. This method was successfully applied to three heat exchangers. The most suitable heat exchanger was found to lead to a maximum net power output 158% higher than the output of the least suitable heat exchanger. For a difference of 3.7% in the net power output, a difference of 22% in the Reynolds numbers was found. Therefore, those numbers also play a significant role in the choice of heat exchangers as they affect the pumping power required for seawater flowing. A sensitivity analysis showed that seawater temperature does not affect the choice of heat exchangers, even though the net power output was found to decrease by up to 10% with every temperature difference drop of 1 °C.


Author(s):  
P. Lu ◽  
C. Brace ◽  
B. Hu ◽  
C. Copeland

For an internal combustion engine, a large quantity of fuel energy (accounting for approximately 30% of the total combustion energy) is expelled through the exhaust without being converted into useful work. Various technologies including turbo-compounding and the pressurized Brayton bottoming cycle have been developed to recover the exhaust heat and thus reduce the fuel consumption and CO2 emission. However, the application of these approaches in small automotive power plants has been relatively less explored because of the inherent difficulties, such as the detrimental backpressure and higher complexity imposed by the additional devices. Therefore, research has been conducted, in which modifications were made to the traditional arrangement aiming to minimize the weaknesses. The turbocharger of the baseline series turbo-compounding was eliminated from the system so that the power turbine became the only heat recovery device on the exhaust side of the engine, and operated at a higher expansion ratio. The compressor was separated from the turbine shaft and mechanically connected to the engine via CVT. According to the results, the backpressure of the novel system is significantly reduced comparing with the series turbo-compounding model. The power output at lower engine speed was also promoted. For the pressurized Brayton bottoming cycle, rather than transferring the thermal energy from the exhaust to the working fluid, the exhaust gas was directly utilized as the working medium and was simply cooled by ambient coolant before the compressor. This arrangement, which is known as the inverted Brayton cycle was simpler to implement. Besides, it allowed the exhaust gasses to be expanded below the ambient pressure. Thereby, the primary cycle was less compromised by the bottoming cycle. The potential of recovering energy from the exhaust was increased as well. This paper analysed and optimized the parameters (including CVT ratio, turbine and compressor speed and the inlet pressure to the bottoming cycle) that are sensitive to the performance of the small vehicle engine equipped with inverted Brayton cycle and novel turbo-compounding system respectively. The performance evaluation was given in terms of brake power output and specific fuel consumption. Two working conditions, full and partial load (10 and 2 bar BMEP) were investigated. Evaluation of the transient performance was also carried out. Simulated results of these two designs were compared with each other as well as the performance from the corresponding baseline models. The system models in this paper were built in GT-Power which is a one dimension (1-D) engine simulation code. All the waste heat recovery systems were combined with a 2.0 litre gasoline engine.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Srinath Somu ◽  
Deanna A. Lacoste ◽  
Saumitra Saxena ◽  
William Roberts ◽  
Robert M. Keolian

Abstract Waste heat recovery from power plants and industries requires a new type of electricity generator and related technological developments. The current research work is aimed at the design of a multi-kilowatt thermoacoustic electric generator, which can be employed as the bottoming cycle of a gas-turbine power plant or for industrial waste heat recovery. The proposed device converts thermal energy into acoustic power and subsequently uses a piezoelectric alternator to convert acoustic power into electricity. The challenge in designing such a device is that it has to be acoustically balanced. The performance of the device is greatly affected by numerous parameters such as frequency of the traveling acoustic wave, heat exchanger parameters, regenerator dimensions, acoustic feedback loop, etc. The proposed device is a lab-scale demonstration targeted to produce few kilowatts of electric power from a 20 kWth heat source. DeltaEC software is used to achieve the acoustically balanced configuration of the device. The DeltaEC model outcomes are used to arrive at the optimized design of the device and its components. The analytical method, the optimized geometrical dimensions of thermoacoustic components, and the minimum required conditions of heat source input are presented in this paper.


Volume 1 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniele Cocco ◽  
Alberto Pettinau ◽  
Vittorio Tola

It is well known that coal gasification plants allows to produce a clean synthesis gas which can be used as a fuel in IGCC power plants and as a raw material in order to produce hydrogen, methanol, dimethylether (DME) and other chemicals. Recent studies show the growing interest of DME as a new clean fuel for diesel engines, gas turbines, fuel cells and household uses. In this paper, a comparative performance analysis of two different IGCC power plants integrated with a DME synthesis process has been carried out. In particular two different coal gasification processes (a dry-feed and a slurry-feed entrained-flow gasifiers) and the advanced liquid phase DME (LPDME™) synthesis process have been considered. The analysis has been carried out in order to evaluate the influence of the operating parameters of the DME synthesis section (pressure and purge gas recycle ratio) on both DME production and net power output. The performance assessment has shown that, according to both gasification process and DME synthesis parameters, the produced DME accounts for about 40–46% of the coal chemical energy, whereas the net power output of the IGCC-DS plant accounts for about 13–19%. Moreover, the performance assessment also has shown that the IGCC-DS power plants based on the slurry-feed gasification processes lead to an higher DME production and a corresponding lower power output with respect to the solutions based on the dryfeed gasifiers.


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