Gas Turbine Inlet Air Cooling Using Absorption Refrigeration: A Comparison Based on a Combined Cycle Process

Abstract

Gas turbines are used to meet increasing power-generating needs throughout the world. Technologies for augmenting the capacity of new or existing installations are being devised. One common strategy is to employ evaporative cooling of gas turbine inlet air. This method is attractive because of simplicity and relatively modest hardware requirements. Another strategy is to recover exhaust heat in order to activate an absorption-refrigeration machine. The cooling machine output is then used to cool and dehumidify the compressor inlet air. In this paper, we delineate a heat recovery system for steam/power production, and an ammonia-water absorption machine. The ammonia-water technology offers an element of novelty in that it is capable of chilling the air to lower temperatures than the currently used lithium-bromide technology, or than the evaporative cooling approach. Performance calculations based on leading commercial software are offered. In a simple payback analysis based on the numbers obtained from the simulation, we discuss the potential of the technique.

Thermal Energy Storage for Gas Turbine Power Augmentation

“…Secondly, icing formation that can occur below a specific temperature, if the saturated inlet air is cooled near the dew point. This imposes a temperature constraint (~5.5 -7.2 o C) as ice-crystals may lead to severe erosion and wear of the intake guide vanes (Sigler et al, 2001;Chacartegui et al, 2008). Being aware of the latter, the techniques ( Figure 2) used to cool the air entering the GT may be classified into indirect and direct methods.…”

“…Mechanical and absorption cooling methods overcome this limitation but either consume electric power for their operation thus imposing parasitic losses or they are limited to refrigerant cooling temperatures. For example, using an ammonia-water absorption machine may cool the inlet air to lower temperatures than the lithium-bromide technology (Sigler et al, 2001) but the negative effects are that this solution has toxicity related issues.…”

“…Ameri M. et al, 2007;Ameri M. & Hejazi S. H., 2004;Baakeem S. S. et al, 2018;Bhargava R. & Meher-Homji C. B., 2005;Boonnasa S. et al, 2006;Bracco S. et al, 2007;Chacartegui R. et al, 2008;Farzaneh-Gord M. & Deymi-Dashtebayaz M., 2011;Ferrari M. L. et al, 2016;Kakaras E. et al, 2006;Kwon H. M. et al, 2016;Kim T. S. & Ro S. T., 2000;Meher-Homji C. B. & Mee III T. R., 2000;Palestra N. et al, 2008;Sigler J. et al, 2001; control system that will combine the several technologies for the optimal solution. One such decoupling technology is the use of a thermal energy storage system, to lower electricity consumption during peak hours.…”

Application Research of Intake-Air Cooling Technologies in Gas-Steam Combined Cycle Power Plants in China

“…e Lucia [2] made four cooling schemes for Gas turbine LM6000 cogeneration units: A) double stage absorption system; B) single stage absorption refrigeration; C) evaporative cooling; D) evaporative cooling combined with absorption cooling. Single stage and two-stage absorption refrigeration's power is 3300 kW.…”

Evaporatively-cooled compression using a high-pressure refrigerant

“…Inlet fogging can remove enough heat to reduce the temperature by 90% or 95% of Subscripts 1 compressor inlet 2 compressor discharge a air s saturated liquid-ammonia v ammonia vapour the wet-bulb depression. Chillers can cool to 278 K, and it is remarkable that absorption chillers do so with a minimal power consumption, availing themselves of waste heat from the turbine exhaust [7]. Continuous evaporation goes beyond the limits of inlet fogging or overspray, but other limits soon arise: (a) the dynamics of water evaporation are such as to prevent complete evaporation if more than 9% by mass of dry air is injected at a pressure ratio of 25 [6] and (b) additional evaporation would require compression of the vapors thus produced.…”