Gas Turbine Inlet Air Cooling Using Vapor-Adsorption Refrigeration Driven by Power Plant Exhaust

Abstract

Turbine inlet air cooling (TIAC) has long been the most commonly used method to improve the performance of gas turbine based power plants. It is particularly effective in regions with high ambient temperatures. With growing energy demands and higher ambient temperatures around the globe, it is important to look beyond cooling cycles like vapor-absorption and vapor-compression which have certain limitations. It is prudent to use a vapor-adsorption cycle for TIAC since the waste exhaust heat can be utilized as the power source for adsorption compressor, resulting increase in thermal efficiency of the power plant. Also, the scalability of adsorption cooling from mere Watts to hundreds of kW and its ability to function using lower temperature heat sources (as low as 60 °C) render it highly suitable for TIAC. In this paper, a gas turbine power plant and a TIAC system running on vapor-adsorption cycle are mathematically modelled and thermal analysis involving comparison of performance of the power plant with and without inlet air cooling at various ambient and desorption temperatures is presented. Performance parameters analyzed include net power output and thermal efficiency of the power plant and the COP of the chiller. The results show that vapor-adsorption system has huge potential to be integrated with gas turbine power plant for inlet air cooling.