Investigation on efficiency improvement of a Kalina cycle by sliding condensation pressure method

Enhua Wang, Zhibin Yu*, Fujun Zhang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

29 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Conventional Kalina cycle-based geothermal power plants are designed with a fixed working point determined by the local maximum ambient temperature during the year. A previous study indicated that the plant's annual average thermal efficiency would be improved if the ammonia mass fraction of the Kalina cycle could be tuned to adapt to the ambient conditions. In this paper, another sliding condensation pressure method is investigated. A theoretical model is set up and then a numerical program is developed to analyze the cycle performance. The condensation pressure adjustment in accordance to the changing ambient temperature has been numerically demonstrated under various ammonia-water mixture concentrations. The results indicate that the Kalina cycle using sliding condensation pressure method can achieve much better annual average thermal efficiency than a conventional Kalina cycle through matching the cycle with the changing ambient temperature via controlling condensation pressure. Furthermore, the sliding condensation pressure method is compared with the composition tuning method. The results show that the annual average efficiency improvement of the sliding condensation pressure method is higher than that of the composition tuning method.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)123-135
Number of pages13
JournalEnergy Conversion and Management
Volume151
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2017

Keywords

  • Ambient temperature match
  • Ammonia-water mixture
  • Composition tuning
  • Kalina cycle
  • Sliding condensation pressure

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Wang, E., Yu, Z., & Zhang, F. (2017). Investigation on efficiency improvement of a Kalina cycle by sliding condensation pressure method. Energy Conversion and Management, 151, 123-135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2017.08.078