Alternative solution for cooling water shortage in thermal power plants

A large shortage of water resources in Iraq is caused due to the dams’ establishment by the Turkish side on Tigris & Euphrates Rivers. Accordingly, the Iraqi authorities started to seek new cooling techniques in thermal power plants. This work deals with the design and analysis of a closed cooling system for 200 MW thermal power plant. The design considers the tower characteristics, fill size, fill type and evaporation losses. The hydrothermal process of the condenser and the cooling tower operation is modelled and coded in a computer procedure. The model aims to estimate the design variable under different percentage of water addition to the cooling system (10%, 20%, 30% and 40%). The procedure has been validated by case study using in-service power plant data. Two types of cooling towers have been investigated using different types of locally made fills. The results demonstrated that the counter flow cooling tower and more compact. The numerical analyses of the cooling towers indicated that there is an optimum size for the cooling tower. The wet bulb temperature has a considerable influence on the cooling tower performance. It is highly recommended to design the cooling system under 10% to 20 % mixing ratio and to operate the plant with about 30% addition of water from the river.

Keywords: Cooling Towers, Power Plant, Hydro thermal modelling, Energy Technology.