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A comparative thermodynamic analysis of Kalina and organic Rankine cycles for hot dry rock: a prospect study in the Gonghe Basin

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Abstract

Hot dry rock is a new type of geothermal resource which has a promising application prospect in China. This paper conducted a comparative research on performance evaluation of two eligible bottoming cycles for a hot dry rock power plant in the Gonghe Basin. Based on the given heat production conditions, a Kalina cycle and three organic Rankine cycles were tested respectively with different ammonia-water mixtures of seven ammonia mass fractions and nine eco-friendly working fluids. The results show that the optimal ammonia mass fraction is 82% for the proposed bottoming Kalina cycle in view of maximum net power output. Thermodynamic analysis suggests that wet fluids should be supercritical while dry fluids should be saturated at the inlet of turbine, respectively. The maximum net power output of the organic Rankine cycle with dry fluids expanding from saturated state is higher than that of the other organic Rankine cycle combinations, and is far higher than the maximum net power output in all tested Kalina cycle cases. Under the given heat production conditions of hot dry rock resource in the Gonghe Basin, the saturated organic Rankine cycle with the dry fluid butane as working fluid generates the largest amount of net power.

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Abbreviations

AMF:

Ammonia mass fraction

EGS:

Enhanced geothermal system

HDR:

Hot dry rock

K:

State point in Kalina cycle

KC:

Kalina cycle

KCS:

Kalina cycle system

KCS-11:

Kalina cycle system 11

KCS-34:

Kalina cycle system 34

KCS-34 g:

Kalina cycle system 34 g

O:

State point in organic Rankine cycle

ORC:

Organic Rankine cycle

ORC-S:

Organic Rankine cycle with saturated expansion

ORC-SC:

Organic Rankine cycle with supercritical expansion

ORC-SH:

Organic Rankine cycle with superheated expansion

SC:

Supercritical state

SH:

Superheated state

D :

Depth/m

P :

Pressure/bar

T :

Temperature/°C

W :

Power output/MW

e :

Specific exergy/(kJ·kg−1)

h :

Specific enthalpy/(kJ·kg−1)

m :

Mass flowrate/(t·h−1)

s :

Specific entropy/(kJ·kg−1·°C−1)

v :

Volume flowrate/(m3·h−1)

w m :

Mass specific power/(kW·h·t−1)

w v :

Volume specific power/(kW·h·m−3)

γ :

Vapor quality/%

η :

Efficiency/%

0:

In ambient condition

c:

At critical point

cold:

At the cold side

ex:

Parameter based on exergy

hot:

At the hot side

i:

At certain state point i

in:

At the inlet

inj:

At the inlet of injection well of EGS

net:

Net power output

out:

At the outlet

pro:

At the outlet of production well of EGS

th:

Parameter based on thermal energy

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the State Grid Technology Program (SGRI-DL-71-15-006), and the Scientific and Technological Project of Qinghai Province, China (2018-ZJ-726).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Control and Simulation of Power System and Generation Equipments, Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Xuelin Zhang, Tong Zhang, Xiaodai Xue, Yang Si, Xuemin Zhang & Shengwei Mei

  2. Jingjing Energy Storage Co., Ltd., Changzhou, 213200, China

    Tong Zhang & Xiaodai Xue

  3. School of QiDi (TUS) Renewable Energy, Qinghai University, Xining, 810016, China

    Xiaodai Xue, Yang Si, Xuemin Zhang & Shengwei Mei

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  1. Xuelin Zhang
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  2. Tong Zhang
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Correspondence to Xiaodai Xue.

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Zhang, X., Zhang, T., Xue, X. et al. A comparative thermodynamic analysis of Kalina and organic Rankine cycles for hot dry rock: a prospect study in the Gonghe Basin. Front. Energy 14, 889–900 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-020-0704-1

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