Energy Performance of a Kalina Cycle based CHP plant driven by low-enthalpy geothermal sources

Abstract

The low-enthalpy geothermal sources can be efficiently exploited for heat and power cogeneration by using the KCS-34 Kalina cycle systems. The maximum power for given heat source temperature and cooling temperature is obtained for a certain value of the ammonia-water solution concentration and turbine exit pressure. The Cycle-Tempo simulation software is a very useful tool to investigate variation of some cycle parameters in order to obtain the maximum energy efficiency. In this paper the performance of a KCS-34 Kalina cycle based CHP plant is investigated to exploit a geothermal source with 120°C temperature present in North-West of Romania. It was found that by using the heat and power cogeneration the energy efficiency can be increased from 16.76% to 57.86% in winter and to 33.44% in summer.