Improvement potential of a real geothermal power plant using advanced exergy analysis

The main purpose of this paper is to quantitatively evaluate thermodynamic performance of a geothermal power plant (GPP) from potential for improvement point of view. Thus, sources of inefficiency and irreversibilities can be determined through exergy analysis. The advanced exergy analysis is more appropriate to determine real potential for thermodynamic improvements of the system by splitting exergy destruction into unavoidable and avoidable portions. The performance critical components and the potential for exergy efficiency improvement of a GPP were determined by means of the advanced exergy analysis. This plant is the Bereket GPP in Denizli/Turkey as a current operating system. The results show that the avoidable portion of exergy destruction in all components except for the turbines is higher than the unavoidable value. Therefore, much can be made to lessen the irreversibilities for components of the Bereket GPP. The total exergy efficiency of the system is found to be 9.60%. Its efficiency can be increased up to 15.40% by making improvements in the overall components. Although the heat exchangers had lower exergy and modified exergy efficiencies, their exergy improvement potentials were high. Finally, in the plant, the old technology is believed to be one of the main reasons for low efficiencies.