Exergy analysis and performance evaluation of Kizildere Geothermal Power Plant, Turkey

Abstract

Conventional geothermal power plants (GPP) differ from fossil-fuel power plants (FFPP) in many ways. The most specific ones are GPPs, are not cyclic plants and the working fluid is not pure steam. Geothermal steam contains non-condensable gases (NCG) which degrade power plant efficiency. This discrepancy leads to two considerations in energy and exergy analysis of GPPs. One is that the amount of NCGs in the steam cannot be omitted during the calculations; the other is that the dead state composition varies throughout the process. In this work, energy and exergy analysis is conducted to assess the performance of Kizildere GPP under both considerations. The net second law efficiencies of the plant based on reservoir and wellhead exergy are 24.3 and 27.2% respectively. Both indicate that the plant performance is low comparing with the other single-flash GPPs and FFPPs. The losses are mainly associated with high NCG content and low steam fraction of the fluid.