Modelling the thermal effluent of a near coast power plant (Sines, Portugal)

Salgueiro, D. V.; Pablo, Hilda de; Neves, Ramiro; Mateus, Marcos

doi:10.5894/rgci577

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…This causes the plume to rise faster, and therefore, it reaches the intake inlet with less dispersion. Similar behavior and results have been observed by other researchers and engineers [11,31,32]. …”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 79%

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Thermal Recirculation Modeling for Power Plants in an Estuarine Environment

Salehi¹

2017

JMSE

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Many power plants require large quantities of water for cooling purposes. The water taken from the source water body (e.g., lakes, estuaries, bays and rivers) circulates through the plant and returns to the source through outfall with a higher temperature. For optimal performance of the power plant, the intake inlet and discharge outlet should be meticulously placed so that the heated water will not recirculate back into the power plant. In this study, the Flow module of the Delft3D software is employed to simulate the temperature transport within the study area in three-dimensional and nested format. Model results are used to optimize the location of intake inlets, outfall outlets and diffuser port orientations. The physical processes used in the study are tidal fluctuations, winds, river discharges, salinity and temperature. The subject power plant (power plant parameters presented in this paper are realistic; however, they do not target any specific power plant within the study area) has a nominal capacity of 2600 MW and is planned to be located in Delaware Bay, USA. Existing field measurements are used to calibrate the model in a coupled two-staged fashion for main tidal constituents, currents and water temperature. The sensitivity of the model against various input parameters is tested, and conservative values are selected. The location of the intake is fixed, and the location of the outfall is changed until the thermal impact to the intake is less than 1 • C. Analysis of the results shows that there is a linear logarithmic relation between the excess temperatures at the intake inlet and horizontal eddy diffusivity. The k − turbulence closure results in higher excess temperature and a more conservative design. Extending the outfall location to the deeper portion of the estuary combined with port orientations reduces the impact by keeping the thermal plume away from the intake inlet and meeting the established criteria. It is concluded that an approximate distance of 1300 m is the optimal location for the power plant outfall outlets. In addition, the diffuser ports should not discharge the heated water toward the intake and have to be oriented away from the line connecting outfall to the intake.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 79%

“…The majority of such studies is focused on power plants located in coastal areas and not necessarily estuaries [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. The work in [5] studied the outfall excess temperature for a 6000-MW nuclear power plant in coastal nearshore waters.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermal Recirculation Modeling for Power Plants in an Estuarine Environment

Salehi¹

2017

JMSE

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“…As the winds weaken, these mechanisms have more and more influence on the currents. Other existing studies [9] have shown the significant effects of the tide, which differs from the results observed for the present specific case study.…”

Section: Dcontrasting

confidence: 57%

“…The viability of numerical modeling is mainly due to both the progress in multidisciplinary modeling in recent decades and the progress in computing technologies and programming performance, which makes possible the computation of complex phenomena with high resolution and reduced processing times. Some recent works that study thermal plume dispersion, specifically from power plants, through numerical modeling can be consulted in [4] and [8,9]. This paper presents a study of a thermal plume dispersion into the sea caused by a power plant.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical Modeling of Water Thermal Plumes Emitted by Thermal Power Plants

Durán-Colmenares

Barrios-Piña

Ramírez-León

2016

Water

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This work focuses on the study of thermal dispersion of plumes emitted by power plants into the sea. Wastewater discharge from power stations causes impacts that require investigation or monitoring. A study to characterize the physical effects of thermal plumes into the sea is carried out here by numerical modeling and field measurements. The case study is the thermal discharges of the Presidente Adolfo López Mateos Power Plant, located in Veracruz, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. This plant is managed by the Federal Electricity Commission of Mexico. The physical effects of such plumes are related to the increase of seawater temperature caused by the hot water discharge of the plant. We focus on the implementation, calibration, and validation of the Delft3D-FLOW model, which solves the shallow-water equations. The numerical simulations consider a critical scenario where meteorological and oceanographic parameters are taken into account to reproduce the proper physical conditions of the environment. The results show a local physical effect of the thermal plumes within the study zone, given the predominant strong winds conditions of the scenario under study.

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“…The horizontal dispersion of thermal plumes is mainly driven by wind-induced currents [He et al, 2006;Choi and Wilkin, 2007;Cardoso-Mohedano et al, 2015]. Near-shore regions close to the emitting source are therefore especially sensitive to thermal pollution since heat plumes can be trapped by coastal currents without being dispersed across the water body [Raithby et al, 1988;Salgueiro et al, 2015].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physical effects of thermal pollution in lakes

Vinnå

Wüest

Bouffard

2017

Water Resources Research

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Anthropogenic heat emissions into inland waters influence water temperature and affect stratification, heat and nutrient fluxes, deep water renewal, and biota. Given the increased thermal stress on these systems by growing cooling demands of riparian/coastal infrastructures in combination with climate warming, the question arises on how to best monitor and manage these systems. In this study, we investigate local and system‐wide physical effects on the medium‐sized perialpine Lake Biel (Switzerland), influenced by point‐source cooling water emission from an upstream nuclear power plant (heat emission ∼700 MW, ∼18 W m−2 lake wide). We use one‐dimensional (SIMSTRAT) and three‐dimensional (Delft3D‐Flow) hydrodynamic numerical simulations and provide model resolution guidelines for future studies of thermal pollution. The effects on Lake Biel by the emitted excess heat are summarized as: (i) clear seasonal trend in temperature increase, locally up to 3.4°C and system‐wide volume mean ∼0.3°C, which corresponds to one decade of regional surface water climate warming; (ii) the majority of supplied thermal pollution (∼60%) leaves this short residence time (∼58 days) system via the main outlet, whereas the remaining heat exits to the atmosphere; (iii) increased length of stratified period due to the stabilizing effects of additional heat; (iv) system‐wide effects such as warmer temperature, prolonged stratified period, and river‐caused epilimnion flushing are resolved by both models whereas local raised temperature and river short circuiting was only identifiable with the three‐dimensional model approach. This model‐based method provides an ideal tool to assess man‐made impacts on lakes and their downstream outflows.

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Modelling the thermal effluent of a near coast power plant (Sines, Portugal)

Cited by 13 publications

References 55 publications

Thermal Recirculation Modeling for Power Plants in an Estuarine Environment

Thermal Recirculation Modeling for Power Plants in an Estuarine Environment

Numerical Modeling of Water Thermal Plumes Emitted by Thermal Power Plants

Physical effects of thermal pollution in lakes

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