A novel district heating system based on absorption heat exchange and water-heat combined supply

Abstract

Considering the challenges posed by long transportation distances and poor heating economy in large-scale heating systems based on conventional steam extraction cogeneration in nuclear power plants, a novel district heating system is proposed. This novel system is based on absorption heat exchange and water-heat combined supply. It offers significant improvements in heating and transportation capacity, while reducing the required investment in pipelines and transportation power consumption. In this study, an example of an AP1000 nuclear power turbine unit was used to construct a novel system. Additionally, a comprehensive energy efficiency evaluation model was established for this system. A comparison with the conventional district heating system based on cogeneration revealed several notable advantages of the novel system: (1) the comprehensive equivalent electricity decreased from 45.3 kWh/GJ to 31.2 kWh/GJ, representing a 31.1% reduction; (2) the unit heating cost decreased from 51.1 CNY/GJ to 42.0 CNY/GJ, resulting in potential savings of 10,726.17 × 104 CNY during a heating season; and (3) the emissions of CO2, SO2, and NOx were reduced by approximately 117.78 × 104 tons, 3.55 × 104 tons, and 1.77 × 104 tons, respectively.