Energy and water conservation at lignite-fired power plants using drying and water recovery technologies

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

43 Scopus citations

Abstract

Abstract Lignite is considered as a competitive energy raw material with high security of supply viewed from a global angle. However, lignite-fired power plants have many shortcomings, including high investment, low energy efficiency and high water use. To address these issues, the drying and water recovery technologies are integrated within lignite-fired power plants. Both air-cooling and wet-cooling units with three kinds of lignite as feeding fuel were analyzed quantitatively. Results showed that energy conservation and water conservation are obtained simultaneously. The power plant firing high moisture lignite becomes more environmental friendly with higher power generation efficiency and a lower water makeup rate than the one firing low moisture lignite. And further calculation revealed that the air-cooling unit needs no makeup water and even produces some water as it generates power, when the water carrying coefficient is higher than 40 g/MJ.

Original languageEnglish
Article number7400
Pages (from-to)118-126
Number of pages9
JournalEnergy Conversion and Management
Volume105
DOIs
StatePublished - 5 Aug 2015

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

  1. SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy
    SDG 7 Affordable and Clean Energy

Keywords

  • Case analysis
  • Energy conservation
  • Lignite
  • Thermodynamics
  • Water conservation

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