Benefits of Compressor Inlet Air Cooling for Gas Turbine Cogeneration Plants

1996 ◽  
Vol 118 (3) ◽  
pp. 598-603 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. De Lucia ◽  
C. Lanfranchi ◽  
V. Boggio

Compressor inlet air cooling is an effective method for enhancing the performance of gas turbine plants. This paper presents a comparative analysis of different solutions for cooling the compressor inlet air for the LM6000 gas turbine in a cogeneration plant operated in base load. Absorption and evaporative cooling systems are considered and their performance and economic benefits compared for the dry low-NOx LM6000 version. Reference is made to two sites in Northern and Southern Italy, whose climatic data series for modeling the variations in ambient temperature during the single day were used to account for the effects of climate in the simulation. The results confirmed the advantages of inlet air cooling systems. In particular, evaporative cooling proved to be cost effective, though capable of supplying only moderate cooling, while absorption systems have a higher cost but are also more versatile and powerful in base-load operation. An integration of the two systems proved to be able to give both maximum performance enhancement and net economic benefit.

Author(s):  
Maurizio De Lucia ◽  
Carlo Lanfranchi ◽  
Vanni Boggio

Compressor inlet air cooling is an effective method for enhancing the performance of gas turbine plants. This paper presents a comparative analysis of different solutions for cooling the compressor inlet air for the LM6000 gas turbine in a cogeneration plant operated in base load. Absorption and evaporative cooling systems are considered and their performance and economic benefits compared for the dry low-NOx LM6000 version. Reference is made to two sites in Northern and Southern Italy, whose climatic data series for modeling the variations in ambient temperature during the single day were used, to account for the effects of climate in the simulation. The results confirmed the advantages of inlet air cooling systems. In particular, evaporative cooling proved to be cost-effective, though capable of supplying only moderate cooling, while absorption systems have a higher cost but are also more versatile and powerful in base load operation. An integration of the two systems proved to be able to give both maximum performance enhancement and net economic benefit.


Author(s):  
Farshid Zabihian ◽  
Alan S. Fung ◽  
Fabio Schuler

Gas turbine-based power plants are very sensitive to ambient conditions and their output power and efficiency can be decreased significantly with increase in the ambient temperature. Various compressor inlet air cooling systems have been proposed and utilized to reduce inlet air temperature to the system, including evaporative systems e.g. media and fogging, and mechanical cooling systems. In this work, different techniques for compressor inlet air cooling are briefly reviewed. Then, the fogging system employed in the Whitby cogeneration power plant is explained with particular attention to the location of the system installation. A model of the gas turbine-based cogeneration plant is also developed to simulate the Whitby cogeneration power plant. The effects of fogging compressor inlet air cooling system on the performance of the plant are investigated. The results indicate that at an ambient temperature of 30°C and relative humidity of 40% the inlet cooling of as high as 8.4°C is possible which can increase output power to more than 50 MW. Also, it is found that the model can predict the gas turbine exhaust temperature and the plant’s power production with the error level of lower than 0.5% and 3%, respectively.


Author(s):  
Maurizio De Lucia ◽  
Ennio Carnevale ◽  
Massimo Falchetti ◽  
Alberto Tesei

Gas Turbine (GT) performance seriously deteriorates at increased ambient temperature. This study analyses the possibility of improving GT power output and efficiency by installing a gas turbine inlet air cooling system. Different cooling systems were analyzed and preliminary cost evaluations for each system were carried out. The following three cooling systems were considered in detail: a) Traditional compression cooling system; b) Absorption single-acting cooling system using a solution of lithium bromide; c) Absorption double-acting cooling system using a solution of lithium bromide. Results clearly indicate that there is a great potential for GT performance enhancement by application of an Inlet Air Cooling (IAC). Technical and economical analyses lead to selection of a particular type of IAC for significant savings in capital outlay, operational and maintenance costs and other additional advantages.


Author(s):  
E. Kakaras ◽  
A. Doukelis ◽  
A. Prelipceanu ◽  
S. Karellas

Power generation from gas turbines is penalised by a substantial power output loss with increased ambient temperature. By cooling down the gas turbine intake air, the power output penalty can be mitigated. The purpose of this paper is to review the state of the art in applications for reducing the gas turbine intake air temperature and examine the merits from integration of the different air-cooling methods in gas turbine based power plants. Three different intake air-cooling methods (evaporative cooling, refrigeration cooling and evaporative cooling of pre-compressed air) have been applied in two combined cycle power plants and two gas turbine plants. The calculations were performed on a yearly basis of operation, taking into account the time-varying climatic conditions. The economics from integration of the different cooling systems were calculated and compared.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 1382
Author(s):  
Obida Zeitoun

Gas turbine inlet air-cooling (TIAC) is an established technology for augmenting gas turbine output and efficiency, especially in hot regions. TIAC using evaporative cooling is suitable for hot, dry regions; however, the cooling is limited by the ambient wet-bulb temperature. This study investigates two-stage evaporative TIAC under the harsh weather of Riyadh city. The two-stage evaporative TIAC system consists of indirect and direct evaporative stages. In the indirect stage, air is precooled using water cooled in a cooling tower. In the direct stage, adiabatic saturation cools the air. This investigation was conducted for the GE 7001EA gas turbine model. Thermoflex software was used to simulate the GE 7001EA gas turbine using different TIAC systems including evaporative, two-stage evaporative, hybrid absorption refrigeration evaporative and hybrid vapor-compression refrigeration evaporative cooling systems. Comparisons of different performance parameters of gas turbines were conducted. The added annual profit and payback period were estimated for different TIAC systems.


Author(s):  
Hany A. Al-Ansary

Cooling turbine inlet air is a proven method of increasing turbine power output, especially during peak summer demand. It is estimated that turbine power output can increase by as much as 0.7% for every 1°C drop in inlet air temperature. Two inlet air cooling systems are widely used: evaporative cooling systems and chiller systems. Evaporative cooling is economical and uncomplicated, but its efficiency can significantly drop if the relative humidity is high. There is also a potential for excessive wear of compressor blades if water droplets are carried into the compressor section. On the other hand, chiller systems have the advantage of being independent of humidity and do not have the potential to cause damage to compressor blades. However, chiller systems consume power and cause a larger pressure drop than evaporative coolers. In this work, the possibility of using an ejector refrigeration system to cool turbine inlet air is explored. These systems are low-maintenance, fluid-driven, heat-operated devices that can use part of the turbine exhaust flow as the heat source for running the cycle. These systems require only pump power to feed liquid refrigerant to the vapor generator, making the power consumption potentially lower than conventional chiller systems. Using thermodynamic analysis, this paper compares the performance of ejector refrigeration systems with that of chiller systems based primarily on their power consumption. Performance characteristics for the ejector system are obtained through a CFD model that uses a real-gas model for R-134a. Published data on the performance of a commercial gas turbine is also considered. The power consumption of ejector refrigeration systems is found to be significantly smaller than that of vapor compression systems, with savings ranging from 19% to 80%. Power consumption is also found to be small compared to the boost in turbine power that is obtained. The percentage of waste heat needed to operate the ejector refrigeration system is found to be generally less than 25%.


Author(s):  
Sandu Constantin ◽  
Dan Brasoveanu

Abstract Cooling systems with liquid for gas turbine engines that use the relative motion of the engine stator with respect to the rotor for actuating the coolant pump can be encapsulated within the engine rotor. In this manner, the difficult problem of sealing stator/rotor interfaces at high temperature, pressure and relative velocity is circumvented. A first generation of such cooling systems could be manufactured using existing technologies and would boost the thermal efficiency of gas turbine engines by more than 2% compared to recent designs that use advanced air-cooling methods. Later, relative cooling systems could increase the thermal efficiency of gas turbine engines by 8%–11% by boosting the temperatures at turbine inlet to stoichiometric levels and recovering most of the heat extracted from turbine during cooling. The appreciated high reliability of this cooling system will allow widespread use for aerospace propulsion.


Author(s):  
Duan Liqiang ◽  
Guo Yaofei ◽  
Pan Pan ◽  
Li Yongxia

Abstract The environmental conditions (air temperature and relative humidity) have a great impact on the power and efficiency of gas turbine combined cycle (GTCC) system. Using the intake air cooling technology can greatly improve the performance of GTCC system. On the base of the PG9351FA gas turbine combined cycle system, this article builds the models of both the GTCC system and a typical lithium bromide absorption refrigeration system using Aspen Plus software. The effects of compressor inlet air cooling with different environmental conditions on the GTCC system performance are studied. The research results show that using the inlet air cooling technology can obviously increase the output powers of both the gas turbine and the combined cycle power. When the ambient humidity is low, the efficiency of GTCC changes gently; while the ambient humidity is high, the GTCC system efficiency will decline substantially when water in the air is condensed and removed with the progress of cooling process. At the same ambient temperature, when the relative humidity of the environment is equal to 20%, the gas turbine output power is increased by 35.64 MW, with an increase of 16.32%, and the combined cycle output power is increased by 39.57 MW, with an increase of 11.34%. At an ambient temperature of 35°C, for every 2.5 °C drop in the compressor inlet air, the thermal efficiency of the gas turbine increases by 0.189% compared to before cooling.


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