System Modeling of the HTTR and Economic Dispatch Model of the Secondary System

Program Document · Tue Aug 31 04:00:00 EDT 2021

OSTI ID:1836104

Anderson, Nolan A ^[1]; Humrickhouse, Paul W ^[1]; Richards, James ^[2]; Rabiti, Cristian ^[2]; Sato, Hiroyuki ^[3]; Yan, Xing ^[3]

---

1. Idaho National Laboratory
2. USNC
3. JAEA

High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors (HTGRs) can be used for the generation of electricity and their process heat can be used to improve the efficiency of chemical processes such as hydrogen production. The JAEA-operated High-Temperature engineering Test Reactor (HTTR-GT/H2) is exploring using the reactor for electricity and hydrogen production. A RELAP5-3D model of the HTTR-GT/H2 secondary system has been developed using design information. The various components and heat exchangers in the secondary system were modeled and results were compared to the design conditions. The results for the sole-power generation mode were shown to fit the design conditions very well. The largest temperature difference was on the order of 7 K, and the largest pressure difference was on the order of 0.05 MPa. The results for the hydrogen cogeneration mode did not match the design conditions nearly as well. The largest temperature difference was about 39 K and the largest pressure difference was about 0.27 MPa at the compressor outlet. The larger differences for the hydrogen cogeneration mode are attributed to the various complex components and the flow being split in the secondary loop. A transient reduction in heat removal capability of the secondary system was investigated. Reactor temperatures are anticipated to rise as a result. The core reactivity response due to this increase in temperature is investigated and is expected to add negative reactivity to the reactor. An economic dispatch model was developed for a nuclear-driven iodine-sulfur cycle system to determine hydrogen sale prices that would make such a system profitable. The study focuses on the development of the economic model and the role that input data plays on final calculated values. It was found that the input electricity prices, whether using historical data or a host of synthetic time histories, produce significantly different breakeven hydrogen sale prices. As such, great care should be used in these economic dispatch analyses to select reasonable input assumptions.

• Research Organization: Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
• DOE Contract Number: AC07-05ID14517
• OSTI ID: 1836104
• Report Number(s): INL/EXT-21-64520-Rev000
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
HTTR
RAVEN
RELAP5-3D