Thermodynamic assessment of gas removal systems for single-flash geothermal power plants

Abstract

Geothermal fluids contain non-condensable gases (NCGs) at various amounts. NCGs flow to a conventional geothermal power plant (GPP) with steam phase and should be withdrawn from the condenser by a gas removal system to prevent increase in condenser pressure and consequently decrease in power generation. Therefore, to remove NCGs from the system is critical especially at high NCG fractions. In this study, the net power output and specific steam consumption of a single-flash GPP is evaluated depending on the separator pressure, NCG fraction and wet bulb temperature of the environment, and three different conventional gas removal options which are two-stage steam jet ejector system, two-stage hybrid system and two-stage compressor system. A simulation code is written in EES to model the plant for each option. The model uses the data of Kizildere Geothermal Power Plant (KGPP) - Turkey, which is a single-flash plant with extremely high NCG fraction, to allow a comparison between the results of the modelling and the operational data of an actual single-flash GPP. Under given conditions, thermodynamic analysis resulted that NCG fraction is the most significant factor on GPP performance and the compressor system is the most efficient and robust option where the influence of the NCG fraction is limited.