What are the effects of climatic factors on station and equipment design in power plant
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Answer:
power plant is for the cooling system to condense steam and carries away the waste heat as part of a Rankine steam cycle. The total water requirements of the plant depends on a number of factors, including the generation technology, generating capacity, the surrounding environmental and climatic conditions, and the plant’s cooling system, which is the most important factor governing coolant flow rate.
Thermal power plants are built for prescribed specific design conditions based on the targeted power demand, metallurgical limits of structural elements, statistical values of environmental conditions, and so forth. At design stage, a cooling medium temperature is chosen for each site considering long term average climate conditions. However, the working conditions deviate from the nominal operating conditions in practice. For this reason, efficiency in electricity production is affected by the deviation of the instantaneous operating temperature of seawater cooling water of a nuclear power plant from the design temperature of the cooling medium extracted from environment to transfer waste heat to the atmosphere via a condenser. Present nuclear plants have about 34–40% thermal efficiency, depending on site (especially water temperature).
The cooling process in nuclear power plants requires large quantities of cooling water. The huge amounts of water withdrawal and consumption cause that the electricity has to face the impacts of climate change, that is, in form of increasing sea temperatures or water scarcity. For instance, if seas exhibit too high water temperatures, the continued use of water for cooling purposes may be at risk because the cooling effect decreases and also water quality regulations could be violated.
An increase in the temperature of cooling water may have impact on the capacity utilization of thermal power plants in two concerns: (1) reduced efficiency: increased environmental temperature reduces thermal efficiency of a thermal power plant, (2) reduced load: for high environmental temperatures, thermal power plant’s operation will be limited by a maximum possible condenser pressure. The operation of plants with river or sea cooling will in addition be limited by a regulated maximum allowable temperature for the return water or by reduced access to water.
In the literature, there are few works published to identify these climate change impacts, and few have tried to quantify them. Ganan et al. [1] studied the performance of the pressurized-water reactor- (PWR-) type Almaraz nuclear-power plant and showed that it is strongly affected by the weather conditions having experienced a power limitation due to vacuum losses in condenser during summer. Durmayaz and Sogut [2] presented a theoretical model to study the influence of the cooling water temperature on the thermal efficiency of a conceptual pressurized-water reactor nuclear-power plant. Sanathara et al. [3] gave a parametric analysis of surface condenser for 120 MW thermal power plant and focus on the influence of the cooling water temperature and flow rate on the condenser performance and thus on the specific heat rate of the plant and its thermal efficiency. Daycock et al. [4] measured the actual decrease in efficiencies of gas power plants located in a desert. Linnerud et al. [5] concluded that a rise in temperature may influence the capacity utilization of thermal power plants in two ways. Chuang and Sue [6] studied the performance effects of combined cycle power plant with variable condenser pressure and loading. Costle and Finn [7] reviewed the evaporative cooling technique in temperature maritime climate.
In this study, an energy analysis is performed to evaluate the impact of the change in cooling medium temperature on the thermal efficiency of a PWR NPP. The objective is to establish a theoretical methodology to assess the plant performance in different climatic conditions and to emphasize the importance of plant site selection from the environmental temperature point of view. A model for condenser heat balance is developed to determine the functional relationship between the cooling water temperature and the condenser pressure considering that saturation condition exists in the condenser and there is a finite amount of temperature differences between this saturation temperature and the cooling water exit temperature. Employing this condenser heat balance model, a cycle analysis is carried out to determine the heat balance conditions and corresponding power output and thermal efficiency for the prescribed range of cooling water temperatures.
Answer:
Climate change is having effects on worker safety, weather delays, construction materials design and insurance costs in the construction industry. ... For instance, extreme hot or cold conditions may require additional specialized equipment resistive to such conditions resulting in cost overruns.