7-31
7-88 A geothermal power plant uses geothermal liquid water at 160ºC at a specified rate as the heat source.
The actual and maximum possible thermal efficiencies and the rate of heat rejected from this power plant
are to be determined.
Assumptions 1 The power plant operates steadily. 2 The kinetic and potential energy changes are zero. 3
Steam properties are used for geothermal water.
Properties Using saturated liquid properties, the source and the sink state enthalpies of geothermal water
are (Table A-4)
Tsource 160qC ½
¾hsource 675.47 kJ/kg
xsource 0 ¿
Tsink 25qC ½
¾hsink 104.83 kJ/kg
xsink 0 ¿
Analysis (a) The rate of heat input to the plant may be taken as the enthalpy difference between the source
and the sink for the power plant
Q in m geo ( hsource hsink ) ( 440 kg/s) (675.47 104.83) kJ/kg 251,083 kW
The actual thermal efficiency is
W net,out 22 MW
K th 0.0876 8.8%
Q in 251.083 MW
(b) The maximum thermal efficiency is the thermal efficiency of a reversible heat engine operating
between the source and sink temperatures
TL (25 273) K
K th, max 1 1 0.312 31.2%
TH (160 273) K
(c) Finally, the rate of heat rejection is
Q out Q in W net,out 251.1 22 229.1 MW
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