Comparison of brine production methods and conversion processes for geothermal electric power generation. Geothermal research study in the Salton Sea region of California

Technical Report · Tue Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 1975

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/7349920· OSTI ID:7349920

Elliott, D G

Two brine production methods were compared with respect to available power at the wellhead: self flowing (brine lifted by steam from vaporization of the brine), and pumped (brine lifted by a mechanical pump and kept in the liquid state). Five conversion processes were compared with respect to fraction of available power converted to electric power: flash steam (steam turbines operating on steam from flash vaporization of the brine), dual steam (flash steam with two-phase expanders to recover the flash vaporization mechanical energy), total flow (two-phase expanders only), binary (heat transferred from the brine to a secondary working fluid), and flash binary (heat transferred from flashed steam to a secondary working fluid). The conclusions of this study are: (1) The flow rate from a self-flowing well can be substantially increased by increasing well bore diameter at and above the flashing level. (2) Self-flowing stepped diameter wells provide more wellhead power than pumped wells (for equal production zone diameters) at nearly all reservoir conditions. (3) Multi-stage flash steam systems using steam turbines provide more output power than binary systems at all reservoir temperatures, using reasonable values for component performance. (4) Total flow machines, used alone, offer no performance advantage as compared to multi-stage direct flash steam, unless efficiency of total flow devices can be increased above current projections. (5) Two-phase expanders in combination with steam turbines provide the highest output power.

• Research Organization: California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AT(04-3)-1086
• OSTI ID: 7349920
• Report Number(s): EQL-10
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY
BINARY-FLUID SYSTEMS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
FLASHED STEAM SYSTEMS
GEOTHERMAL ENERGY CONVERSION
TOTAL FLOW SYSTEMS
GEOTHERMAL FLUIDS
FLASHING
PUMPING
GEOTHERMAL WELLS
FLOW RATE
SALTON SEA GEOTHERMAL FIELD
BRINES
FLUID FLOW
PERFORMANCE
CONVERSION
ENERGY CONVERSION
EVAPORATION
FLUIDS
GEOTHERMAL FIELDS
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
WELLS
Geothermal Legacy
150802* - Geothermal Power Plants- Power Plant Systems & Components
150904 - Geothermal Engineering- Geothermal Reservoir & Well Performance