A combined power cycle utilizing low-temperature waste heat and LNG cold energy

Abstract

This paper has proposed a combined power system, in which low-temperature waste heat can be efficiently recovered and cold energy of liquefied natural gas (LNG) can be fully utilized as well. This system consists of an ammonia–water mixture Rankine cycle and an LNG power generation cycle, and it is modelled by considering mass, energy and species balances for every component and thermodynamic analyses are conducted. The results show that the proposed combined cycle has good performance, with net electrical efficiency and exergy efficiency of 33% and 48%, respectively, for a typical operating condition. The power output is equal to 1.25 MWh per kg of ammonia–water mixture. About 0.2 MW of electrical power for operating sea water pumps can be saved. Parametric analyses are performed for the proposed combined cycle to evaluate the effects of key factors on the performance of the proposed combined cycle through simulation calculations. Results show that a maximum net electrical efficiency can be obtained as the inlet pressure of ammonia turbine increases and the peak value increases as the ammonia mass fraction increases. Exergy efficiency goes up with the increased ammonia turbine inlet pressure. With the ammonia mass fraction increases, the net electrical efficiency increases, whereas exergy efficiency decreases. For increasing LNG turbine inlet pressure or heat source temperature, there is also a peak of net electrical efficiency and exergy efficiency. With the increase of LNG gas turbine outlet pressure, exergy efficiency increases while net electrical efficiency drops.