Plant owners like to see overall power plant cycle efficiencies at levels achievable with wet-cooling solutions, but at the same time, the increase in pressure on scarce water resources forces dry-cooling solutions to be used more and more, compromising performance. Therefore, ENEXIO has partnered with 12 other participants in the EU H2020 funded project MinWaterCSP to develop customized, reliable and sustainable cooling solutions conforming to the signs of the times, implying maintaining performance but reducing water consumption.
At the Power-Gen International 2018, which took place in Orlando, United States from 4-6 December 2018, ENEXIO presented its hybrid air-cooled condenser developed as part of the MinWaterCSP project. Customers showed great interest as it could be demonstrated that hybrid air-cooled condensers allow for a power output increase of CSP plants and other power plants compared to dry-cooling solutions, but with a marginal consumption of cooling water compared to wet-cooled solutions. This is even more interesting as CSP technology remains attractive in regions with a high solar irradiation and could reach a 10% share of the renewable energy market.
At the ENEXIO booth, European based representatives Jörg Torkar (Head of Sales), George Budik (Global Product Development) and Jetmir Shaini (Head of Marketing & Public Relations) as well as US based colleagues Jason Nesseth and Jason Newquist informed potential customers about the advantages of hybrid air-cooled condensers developed within the MinWaterCSP project. The ENEXIO stand and our representatives can be seen in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1: The ENEXIO stand and representatives at the Power-Gen 2018 in Orlando, United States
in the first week of December 2018 (Copyright: ENEXIO Germany GmbH).
Various communication and demonstration tools developed within the MinWaterCSP project were used effectively during the exhibition. These ranged from high quality brochures to digitally 3D printed models of the new Deluge ACC cooling systems, as well as of the dry-cooled reference cooling system, as can be seen in Figures 2 (a) and (b) which follow below.
(a)
(b)
Figure 2 (a) showing a 3D digitally printed model and brochures of the new Deluge ACC hybrid cooling system and (b) a 3D model of the reference air-cooled condenser system (dry-cooled only) referred to as the InAir (Copyright: ENEXIO Germany GmbH).
The MinWaterCSP project aims to develop advanced cooling technologies to reduce cooling system water consumption by up to 95% relative to wet only cooling systems, without compromising performance. The novel hybrid cooling system can be operated in a dry and wet mode, depending on the atmospheric conditions.
To find an effective way of demonstrating and communicating this new advanced technology to a traditionally more conservative power market, ENEXIO Germany developed new cooling technology Apps, and used these for the first time at the Power-Gen when communicating with customers and stakeholders. This certainly proved to be a highlight of the event. Extracts from the App can be seen in Figure 3 below. The App allows the user to digitally navigate in 3D through the cooling system in real size, while further key information is displayed about various components.
Figure 3: Views extracted from the new Deluge ACC cooling system App, which allows the user to digitally navigate through the cooling system in real size while key information is displayed about the various components (Copyright: ENEXIO Germany GmbH).
Author: Albert Zapke, ENEXIO Management GmbH, Germany, Technical coordinator of MinWaterCSP
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