Development of a mobile energy system with offshore floating nuclear reactor and onshore solar energy system

Abstract

In this study, a novel nuclear and solar hybridized energy system with onshore and offshore components is designed, analyzed and assessed by using thermodynamic-based energy and exergy approaches. A high-temperature gas-cooled pebble bed reactor is considered in the floating nuclear plant to integrate with a bifacial photovoltaic (PV) plant in order to supply heat and electricity to four different communities. The process/waste heat and excess electricity are exploited via the thermochemical copper-chlorine hydrogen production cycle to store the energy in a chemical form. The offshore floating nuclear plant is integrated with an onshore energy system in various locations to be able to cover the needs more communities. As a case study, The cities, namely Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet, Pond inlet, and Cambridge Bay, in Nunavut, Canada, are investigated with thermodynamic-based analyses. A time-dependent thermodynamic analysis is carried out by using hourly meteorological data and a shift schedule due to the demands of those communities. The integrated system potentially designed for the city of Iqaluit consists of a 25 MWp bifacial PV plant, a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell stack at 15 MW capacity, a 150 MWth offshore-based floating nuclear power plant, which is coupled to a copper-chlorine-based thermochemical cycle for hydrogen production. This integrated system, which is extensively analyzed thermodynamically under dynamic conditions, is able to produce a total of 1648 tons of hydrogen, 47,239 MWh of electricity and 75,900 MWh of heat in a typical meteorological year. For the floating nuclear plant’s connected period, both energy and exergy efficiencies are found to be 24.5 % and 19.7 %, respectively. During the floating nuclear plant’s disconnected period, the energy and exergy efficiencies are calculated as 39.9 % and 46.0 %, respectively.