Thermodynamic resource of increasing energy efficiency of steam power plants

Abstract

Possibilities of increasing energy efficiency of steam power plants (SPP) are considered. They are used to generate electricity based on theoretical principles of technical thermodynamics with the use of system analysis. Systematic approach is implemented for the set of energy, environmental and economic problems facing power production. Based on global environmental and energy consumption trends, the article considers the main task of Russian power system – reduction of specific consumption of equivalent fuel per unit of generated electricity. Mathematical model of the task is provided. The main attention was paid to maintaining design parameters of SPP cycle in the capacitor. If it is not possible to provide required temperature and pressure using water cooling source, it is proposed to use heat pumps. In contrast to known methods of installing heat pumps for water cooling waste, it is suggested to collect heat on water supply line, bringing temperature to the designed parameters. We propose not to remove heat obtained from water supplied for condensate cooling, but to send it to the SPP cycle. It is shown that this heat makes possible to abandon device of low pressure heaters (DLPH), which will greatly simplify the design of SPP and allows using of intermediate steam of DLPH to generate electricity. Possibility of heating water in a heat pump to a temperature of 140 °С, which corresponds to the level of heating in DLPH, was calculated. Several ways of applying thermodynamics laws to operation of a steam-powered installation, which are still not used, were indicated: the use of air with negative temperature for cooling cyclone condenser instead of using traditional tubular condenser, and the use of phase transition (boiling) of cooling liquid for a condenser.