Wet-dry cooling demonstration. Test results

Technical Report · Thu May 01 04:00:00 EDT 1986

OSTI ID:5904285

Allemann, R T; DeBellis, D E; Werry, E V; Johnson, B M

A large-scale test of dry/wet cooling using the ammonia phase-change system, designated the Advanced Concepts Test (ACT), has been operated at Pacific Gas and Electric Company's Kern Station at Bakersfield, California. The facility is capable of condensing 60,000 lbs/h of steam from a small house turbine. Two different modes of combining dry and evaporative cooling have been tested. One uses deluge cooling in which water is allowed to flow over the fins of the dry (air-cooled) heat exchanger on hot days; the other uses a separate evaporative condenser in parallel to the dry heat exchanger. A third mode of enhancing the dry cooling system, termed capacitive cooling has been tested. In this system, the ammonia-cooled steam condenser is supplemented by a parallel conventional water-cooled condenser with water supplied from a closed system. This water is cooled during off-peak hours each night by an ammonia heat pump which rejects heat through the ACT Cooling Tower. If operated over the period of a year, each of the wet/dry systems would use only 25% of the water normally required to reject this heat load in an evaporative cooling tower. The third would consume no water, the evaporative cooling being replaced by the delayed cooling of the closed system water supply.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC06-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 5904285
• Report Number(s): EPRI-CS-4321; ON: DE86011178
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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