System and method to reduce the temperature of geothermal water to increase the capacity and efficiency while decreasing the costs associated with a geothermal power plant construction

a technology of geothermal water and temperature reduction, applied in steam engine plants, machines/engines, mechanical equipment, etc., can solve the problems of not addressing the cost savings associated with generating additional electrical power, and achieve the elimination of the need to install additional piping from many geothermal wells, maximizing energy extraction, and high efficiency

Inactive Publication Date: 2011-05-05
MCLEOD TODD +1
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Benefits of technology

[0015]By maximizing the energy extraction using high efficiency methods such as this, the need to install additional piping from many geothermal wells is eliminated. A single well can now produce as much electric...

Problems solved by technology

All of the prior inventions address similar topics but none of them address a method of reducing high temperature geothermal resources to enable low temperature ORC technology to be used, nor do the...

Method used

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  • System and method to reduce the temperature of geothermal water to increase the capacity and efficiency while decreasing the costs associated with a geothermal power plant construction
  • System and method to reduce the temperature of geothermal water to increase the capacity and efficiency while decreasing the costs associated with a geothermal power plant construction
  • System and method to reduce the temperature of geothermal water to increase the capacity and efficiency while decreasing the costs associated with a geothermal power plant construction

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[0038]Utilizing a 350° F. geothermal resource at a 1,750 gallon per minute flow rate the system can generate 1000 kWe net power from a resource that using current technology would only generate 1,000 kwe.

[0039]Saturated steam at a temperature of 350° F. will operate at 120 psig with a mass flow rate of 908,877 lb. per hour or converted to a liquid flow rate of 1,750 gallons per minute (gpm). By using a steam flash tank upstream of the geothermal power generation equipment the saturated steam liquid pressure can be reduced to produce a lower temperature geothermal liquid based on engineering steam tables. By reducing the 120 psig geothermal liquid to a pressure of 50 psig, 7% of the mass in the tank will flash into steam at 298° F. which can be used to operate the steam turbine. Under these conditions the steam mass flow will be 74,246 lbs per hour and the turbine generator's electrical out based on this will be 1,000 kWe. The remaining 93% of the initial mass will remain in a liquid...

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Abstract

The system and method to reduce the temperature of geothermal water to increase the capacity and efficiency while decreasing the costs associated with a geothermal power plant construction uses a high efficiency steam turbine. The steam turbine lowers the high temperature geothermal resource so it can be used in parallel with an innovative low temperature Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) geothermal power plant to increase the efficiency and capacity while at the same time to reduce the costs associated with constructing the power plant because of logistics, labor and material.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The present invention relates generally to geothermal power generation, and more particularly to a system and method to reduce increase the capacity and efficiency while decreasing costs associated with geothermal power generation.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]There are two kinds of basic geothermal power plants in operation today. Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC), also known as Binary cycle, and Single Flash Steam power plants are very famous in geothermal power generation applications. Producing more electricity and more thermal energy are the main goals from the geothermal power plants.[0003]The best way to currently increase the overall output from a single resource is to “bottom cycle” the primary technology with additional equipment that can operate within the geothermal conditions to produce additional power from a single resource.[0004]Currently there are geothermal resources within the earth's soil that are at temperatures that range from 100° F. t...

Claims

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Application Information

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IPC IPC(8): F01K27/00
CPCF01K23/02
Inventor MCLEOD, TODDRICARD, ROBERT
Owner MCLEOD TODD
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