Patent Application
20120079826
The present invention relates to a water circulation power generation system for energy recovery and particularly to a power generation system to recover kinetic energy of tail water of water circulation piping.
With constant increasing of world population and widely use of electronic devices and development of transportation, global energy resources become extremely shortened. Many countries and institutions have devoted huge amount of investments in developing alternative energy. At present, alternative energy is still constrained by production intensity and cannot fully meet requirements of consumers' habits. To substitute existing energy resources by extensive alternative energy still is far to reach.
However, there is still a lot of energy in people's life that can be recovered and reused. For instance, water circulation piping is installed in general buildings, the so-called process water or air conditioner cooling water, they all pass through a recovery pipeline in the water circulation piping. Water is cleaned in the recovery pipeline and flowed back to the water circulation piping through the kinetic energy generated by elevation difference.
Take a commercial building as an example. The commercial building equipped with an air conditioning system or a cooling system generally has a heat exchange device at a higher floor (usually at the top floor), which is incorporated with a cooling water tower to draw water as the medium for heat exchange. The water discharged from the heat exchange device can be flowed back repeatedly to the heat exchange device and cooling water tower for cooling purpose.
Another example is a power generation plant (such as a nuclear power plant) that requires huge amount of cooling water that often is drawn from seawater. The cooling water also goes through a heat exchange process with used water (commonly called “tail water”) discharged to the sea by elevation difference (or with aid of pumps).
In the aforesaid conventional water circulation piping, mostly the tail water in the recovery pipeline at the last section thereof can automatically flow by elevation difference. The tail water has kinetic energy which is generated by automatic flowing and is not fully used in the existing techniques. It is a waste of energy. There is still room for improvement especially in the age of increasing shortage of energy resources we are facing today.
In view of increasing shortage of global energy resources and governments and private institutions worldwide having devoted a great deal of investments in developing eco-friendly new energy resources or trying to enhance equipment efficiency to provide sustainable benefit for people now living and future generations, and with the urgent energy requirement at present, to wait for new technology or another five or ten years for building new power generation plants to fill in the existing energy vacancy would be unrealistic. Hence the present invention aims to provide an energy recovery structure to utilize the kinetic energy generated by cooling water that is existed in the central air conditioning of general commercial buildings or fire power generation plants constantly circulating back to its container to recover the unused energy without affecting the original circulation route. Thus the invention not only can generate power also can minimize the load of the power plants and reduce emission of carbon dioxide.
The present invention provides a water circulation power generation system for energy recovery including at least one water circulation power generation system connected to a heat exchange system to obtain required water for heat exchange process. The water circulation power generation system includes a water tank to store cooling water, a water supply pipeline and a recovery pipeline. The water supply pipeline draws water from the water tank and supplies front end water to the heat exchange system. The recovery pipeline guides operational circulation water discharged from the heat exchange system, and has a hydraulic power generator installed thereon driven by the operational circulation water to convert kinetic energy of the operational circulation water to electric power.
Thus during the operational circulation water flows to a recovery destination, its kinetic energy can drive the hydraulic power generator to generate additional electric power. It can save a lot of power consumption in a long-term use, and also achieve long-term goals of energy saving and carbon reduction and ecological development maintenance now pursued by governments worldwide.
The foregoing, as well as additional objects, features and advantages of the invention will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The present invention aims to provide a water circulation power generation system for energy recovery including at least one water circulation power generation system connected to a heat exchange system to obtain water needed for heat exchange process. Referring to
Referring to
The height from the underground water tank to the top floor is: 23×3 m=69 m
The water required by the cooling water tower of the chill water machine set is: 750 t×0.0002 m3/s=0.15 m3/s (1 ton requires about 0.0002 m3/s of water).
The capacity of the water drawing pump 2 supplying water to the cooling water tower is:
0.15 m3/s×69 m×9.81×1000 kg/m3/0.8=127 KW
The estimated recovery energy of the hydraulic power generator 41 is:
0.15 m3/s×69 m×9.81×1000 kg/m3×0.8=81 KW
Assumed the chill water machine set consumes average NT $3/KWh in operating 24 hours every day, the energy recovery saved everyday is:
81 KW×24 hours×NT$3/KWh=NT$5832 (about USD$180)
Please refer to
Referring to
Refer to
Take Chinshan nuclear power plant in Taiwan as an example. It has two steam turbine generators, each has a capacity of 636 Mw thus total is 1272 Mw. Assumed that the discharge temperature difference is set at 10° C., the cooling water amount required for each steam turbine generator is:
GMP=14295×636 Mw/18 F (10° C.)=505090 gpm=31.9 m3/sec
If the water pressure at the distal end of the pipeline is 1 kg/cm2, and the height of the water head is about 10 m, the estimated recovery energy is:
Water amount×water head height×9.81×efficiency×density=31.9 m3/sec×10 m×9.81 m/s/s×0.8×1000 kg/m3=2503 KW
Assumed that operating 24 hours a day with average consumption of NT$3/KWh, the energy recovery saved everyday is: 2503 KW×24 hours×3=NT$180216 (about USD $5600)
The above estimate shows merely the direct energy recovery yield, additional potential yield of carbon discharge (carbon dioxide trade) is saved:
The coal-fired power generation has carbon discharge of 2.095 lbs/KWh, oil-fueled power generation has carbon discharge of 1.969 lbs/KWh, and gas/natural gas-fueled power generation has carbon discharge of 1.321 lbs/KWh. Thus the average of the three above mentioned power generation ways has carbon discharge of 1.795 lbs/KWh.
Thus the carbon discharge converted from the alternate power plant carbon emission is: 1.795×2503 KWh/2200 lbs=2.04 tons
Assumed that the exchange price of carbon dioxide is NT$ 331/ton, the additional yield is NT$16206 (about USD$500) per day.
While
In short, the present invention can save or recover a great deal of power in the long run, and achieve long-term goals of energy recovery and carbon reduction and ecological development maintenance now pursued by governments worldwide.
While the invention has been described by means of specific embodiments, numerous modifications and variations could be made thereto by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention set forth in the claims.
In summation of the above description, the present invention provides a significant improvement over the conventional techniques and complies with the patent application requirements, and is submitted for review and granting of the commensurate patent rights.
