Utilization of municipal wastewater for cooling in thermoelectric power plants: Evaluation of the combined cost of makeup water treatment and increased condenser fouling

Journal Article · Tue Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 2013 · Energy (Oxford)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.07.066· OSTI ID:1129530

Walker, Michael E. ^[1]; Theregowda, Ranjani B. ^[2]; Safari, Iman ^[1]; Abbasian, Javad ^[1]; Arastoopour, Hamid ^[1]; Dzombak, David A. ^[2]; Hsieh, Ming-Kai ^[3]; Miller, David C. ^[4]

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1. Illinois Inst. of Technology, Chicago, IL (United States). Dept. of Chemical and Biological Engineering
2. Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA (United States). Dept of Civil and Mechanical Engineering
3. Tamkang Univ., Taipei (Taiwan). Waer Resources Management and Policy Research Center
4. National Energy Technology Lab. (NETL), Morgantown, WV (United States)

A methodology is presented to calculate the total combined cost (TCC) of water sourcing, water treatment and condenser fouling in the recirculating cooling systems of thermoelectric power plants. The methodology is employed to evaluate the economic viability of using treated municipal wastewater (MWW) to replace the use of freshwater as makeup water to power plant cooling systems. Cost analyses are presented for a reference power plant and five different tertiary treatment scenarios to reduce the scaling tendencies of MWW. Results indicate that a 550 MW sub-critical coal fired power plant with a makeup water requirement of 29.3 ML/day has a TCC of $3.0 - 3.2 million/yr associated with the use of treated MWW for cooling. (All costs USD 2009). This translates to a freshwater conservation cost of $0.29/kL, which is considerably lower than that of dry air cooling technology, $1.5/kL, as well as the 2020 conservation cost target set by the U.S. Department of Energy, $0.74/kL. Results also show that if the available price of freshwater exceeds that of secondary-treated MWW by more than $0.13-0.14/kL, it can be economically advantageous to purchase secondary MWW and treat it for utilization in the recirculating cooling system of a thermoelectric power plant.

• Research Organization: National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), Pittsburgh, PA, and Morgantown, WV (United States). In-house Research
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE)
• DOE Contract Number: FE0004000
• OSTI ID: 1129530
• Report Number(s): A-UNIV-PUB-027
• Journal Information: Energy (Oxford), Journal Name: Energy (Oxford) Journal Issue: C Vol. 60; ISSN 0360-5442
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
Electricity
Fouling
Freshwater conservation
Power
Wastewater
Water treatment