Performance Analysis of Advanced Nuclear Power Plant with Variation of Sea Water Temperature

Abstract

Nuclear power plays a significant role in fulfilling the energy needs of Pakistan and its share in the total energy mix has increased from 4.7% to 8.8% in the past seven years. As per the Pakistan energy outlook report (2021–2030), this share is hypothesized to increase to 10.82% by the year 2030, which will alleviate the energy shortage problem and, at same time, reduce carbon emissions. Like all thermal power plants, it is also necessary for nuclear plants to operate at optimum efficiency. This study is based on the thermodynamic analysis of the conventional side of an advanced HPR-1000 (PWR) nuclear power plant. In this paper, a comparison of indigenously developed model results is made, with vendor-provided sea water temperatures and power curves for year-long sea water temperature variation. Firstly, a computational model is developed using Engineering Equation Solver (EES) software to evaluate the performance of the secondary side of the plant and is validated based on the designer-provided heat balance analysis for full power mode. Then, the condenser heat balance is performed for different cooling medium inlet temperatures and terminal temperature differences to study the relationship of condenser performance, thermal efficiency, and output power. Initial results reveal that sea water temperature varies at the condenser inlet from 5 to 35 °C, the power output of the unit decreases by 54 MW, and the thermodynamic efficiency drops by 1.79%. Thus, this paper highlights the impact of sea water temperature on plant performance and the need to devise more effective techniques to approach the plant’s optimum efficiency.

Keywords

• energy efficiency
• thermodynamic optimization
• steam cycle modeling