مشخصات پژوهش

Geothermal energy, one of the most promising among alternative energy sources, has proven to be reliable, clean, and safe, and therefore its use for power production, and heating and cooling is increasing. It is anticipated that geothermal energy will partially displace more polluting fossil and nuclear energy sources, and become one of the best candidates of the energy sources in the years to come due to the growing concern about global warming and diminishing fossil fuels. Flash-steam geothermal power plants (GPPs) are the most commonly used power generation systems with a total share of 63% within the installed capacity in the World, mainly because most geothermal reservoirs are formed by liquid dominated hydrothermal systems. Of this, 59% is single-flash plants [1]. Therefore, the performance evaluation of single-flash geothermal energy systems must be performed to produce the most out of geothermal energy. The best analytical tool in the performance evaluation of systems is exergy analysis based on the second law of thermodynamics. The analysis successfully identifies the magnitude and location of energy degradation, inefficient use of natural resources, and environmental pollution by means of waste energy. This study assesses the performance of the geothermal power plant and is expected to fill a considerably large gap. The necessity and importance of this proposal is to present energy and exergy analyses and optimization of the single-flash geothermal power cycle. Also, the performance of a single-flash geothermal power cycle is influenced by geothermal fluid properties such as temperature, pressure, separator/condenser pressure. So, it is necessary to evaluate the influence of single-flash GPP performance depending on geothermal fluid properties.