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Title: System study of an MHD/gas turbine combined-cycle baseload power plant. HTGL report No. 134

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/5342791· OSTI ID:5342791

The MHD/gas turbine combined-cycle system has been designed specifically for applications where the availability of cooling water is very limited. The base case systems which were studied consisted of an MHD plant with a gas turbine bottoming plant, and required no cooling water. The gas turbine plant uses only air as its working fluid and receives its energy input from the MHD exhaust gases by means of metal tube heat exchangers. In addition to the base case systems, vapor cycle variation systems were considered which included the addition of a vapor cycle bottoming plant to improve the thermal efficiency. These systems required a small amount of cooling water. The MHD/gas turbine systems were modeled with sufficient detail, using realistic component specifications and costs, so that the thermal and economic performance of the system could be accurately determined. Three cases of MHD/gas turbine systems were studied, with Case I being similar to an MHD/steam system so that a direct comparison of the performances could be made, with Case II being representative of a second generation MHD system, and with Case III considering oxygen enrichment for early commercial applications. The systems are nominally 800 MW/sub e/ to 1000 MW/sub e/ in size. The results show that the MHD/gas turbine system has very good thermal and economic performances while requiring either little or no cooling water. Compared to the MHD/steam system which has a cooling tower heat load of 720 MW, the Base Case I MHD/gas turbine system has a heat rate which is 13% higher and a cost of electricity which is only 7% higher while requiring no cooling water. Case II results show that an improved performance can be expected from second generation MHD/gas turbine systems. Case III results show that an oxygen enriched MHD/gas turbine system may be attractive for early commercial applications in dry regions of the country.

Research Organization:
Stanford Univ., CA (USA). High Temperature Gasdynamics Lab.
DOE Contract Number:
AC01-80ET15611
OSTI ID:
5342791
Report Number(s):
DOE/ET/15611-T3; ON: DE82015215
Resource Relation:
Other Information: Portions of document are illegible
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English