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Power Generation Efficiency Improvement Through Auxiliary System Modifications

Zhengyu Huang and Robert M. Edwards, Member, IEEE
AbstractThermal performance analyses have been performed for some proposed modifications in the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant auxiliary systems, including: 1) auxiliary-condenser circulating-water (ACCW) flow reduction; 2) ACCW discharge diversion to the main condenser; and 3) feedwater heater drain recycling. Analysis shows that the secondary-system thermal efficiency can be improved by reducing circulating-water (CW) flow to the auxiliary condensers at high CW temperatures. This improvement decreases as CW temperature decreases. No benefit can be obtained from ACCW flow reduction at low CW temperatures. It is also shown that electricity output can be increased by diverting ACCW discharge to the main condenser instead of directly to cooling towers as in the current practice. This increase, though also varying with CW temperature, is consistently positive within the considered CW temperature range. For feedwater heater drain recycling, thermal efficiency improvement is significant for the two lowest-pressure stages. Index TermsNuclear power generation, power generation, power generation auxiliary systems, power generation economics.

I. INTRODUCTION T HAS BEEN a persistent practice to achieve higher thermal efficiency in both nuclear power plants and fossil-fired power plants. The methods considered range from modifications in systems and components to performance monitoring, etc. In this paper, some modifications that can possibly improve power plant efficiency have been proposed on two auxiliary systemsauxiliary condenser system and feedwater heater drain system in the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant (TMI-NPP).1 The analyses were performed using an integrated optimization procedure (IOP) [1], which is composed of a MATLAB Optimization Toolbox, PEPSE code, and a Visual Basic Application code specially designed to provide a user interface to PEPSE and a communication bridge between PEPSE and MATLAB. In TMI-NPP, it was observed that the auxiliary condensers have an excessively high vacuum compared to the main condenser. It was, therefore, suggested to reduce circulating-water
Manuscript received September 18, 2000; revised November 28, 2001. Z. Huang is with Thermoflow, Inc., Sudbury, MA 01776 USA (e-mail: hzy001@yahoo.com). R. M. Edwards is with the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 USA (e-mail: e48@psu.edu). Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TEC.2003.816607
1The theoretical results presented in this paper are based on analysis using the original plant thermal kit and do not necessarily reflect current plant configuration and capacities. The purpose of this work has been to develop and demonstrate the possible plant thermal performance improvement through the considered system modification.

(CW) flow to auxiliary condensers (i.e., thus to increase CW flow to the main condenser to improve its vacuum), so that the main turbine electricity output could be increased. Analysis shows that by auxiliary-condenser circulating-water (ACCW) reduction, the plant electricity output can be increased by up to 839 kW at the CW temperature of 30 C (86 F). However, this improvement is not consistent. It decreases with CW inlet temperature. There is no benefit obtained from auxiliary CW reduction when the CW water is sufficiently cold. Optimization results show that the optimal ACCW flow increases with the CW inlet temperature decrease. An alternative to ACCW reduction is to redirect the ACCW discharge to the main condenser instead of to the cooling tower. This alternative takes advantage of the design feature that CW has a much lower temperature rise in auxiliary condensers (1.67.8 C, or 2.814 F) than in the main condenser (15.6 C or 28 F) [2]. Redirection of the circulating water leaving auxiliary condensers to the middle of the main condenser is predicted to result in an electricity increase of up to 1138 kW, and more attractively, this increase is consistent for all circulating-water temperatures considered. The use of drain pumps with feedwater heaters to inject heater drain into feedwater system or condensate system was the third method analyzed to be able to improve thermal efficiency for fossil-fired power plants [3], in which main steam is significantly superheated. This technique is considered as a candidate method to improve TMI-NPP thermal efficiency, though steam in TMI-NPP is just slightly superheated. The analysis shows that drain pumps at the low-pressure stages will result in significant thermal efficiency improvement. The combination of all possible drain pumps applied to the four considered stages is predicted to result in a net power increase of 1238 kW. The use of drain pump only to the lowest pressure stage is also predicted to result in a power increase of 926 kW. II. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF TMI-NPP AND ITS CONDENSER AND FEEDWATER HEATER SYSTEMS TMI-NPP is a pressurized water reactor unit. The rated net electricity output is about 819 MW. The main turbine is composed of one high-pressure turbine section and three low-pressure sections. Two feedwater pumps are each driven by a steam turbine. The condenser system is composed of one main condenser, which is composed of three compartments, and two auxiliary condensers connected to the two feedwater-pump turbines. The main condenser is a Tandem Twin Shell, three pressure level, single pass, and vertically divided surface condenser. See Fig. 1 for details. CW goes from the inlet water box (unseen in

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Fig. 2. Feedwater heater drain configuration.

Fig. 1.

Main condenser side view cutaway.

drain into the next lower-pressure stage (for stage #12, to the main condenser). The schematic configuration of feedwater heater system is shown in Fig. 2 (only one string is shown). III. TOOLS USED FOR ANALYSIS To perform thermal-performance analysis, a procedure called IOP is used. The detailed description of IOP is presented in [1]. In brief, the IOP consists of three main parts: MATLAB Optimization Toolbox [4], PEPSE [5] code, and a Visual Basic [6] Application (VBA) interface. MATLAB Optimization Toolbox is used to perform parameter optimization; PEPSE code is used to build plant secondary thermodynamics model and perform plant secondary-system heat-balance calculation; while the VBA interface is used to communicate between PEPSE and MATLAB. In order for the analysis to be more reliable, the PEPSE model was adjusted so that the results from PEPSE model calculation match well with the vendor thermal-kit heat-balance calculation. Values of electricity output, heat rate, steam-extraction pressures, and feedwater-heater performance indexes (DCA and TTD) from PEPSE calculation are very close to those in the thermal kit. Relative differences in extracted steam flow-rates are within 1%. IV. PROPOSED MODIFICATIONS A. Scheme I: Auxiliary Condenser Circulating Water (ACCW) Flow Reduction Since the auxiliary condensers experience excessively high vacuum compared to the main condenser, it is intuitive to consider reducing CW flow to auxiliary condensers so that more CW is forced into the main condenser to produce higher vacuum, improving thermal efficiency of the main turbine. The schematic diagram of the proposed modification is shown in Fig. 3. In this scheme, total CW flow is assumed to be constant, so decreasing CW flow to auxiliary condenser will increase flow to the main condenser. B. Scheme II: ACCW Discharge Diversion It has been noticed that the CW temperature increase in auxiliary condensers is no more than 50% of that in the main condenser under all conditionsthe design values are 15.6 C F) for the main condenser and (28 F) and 1.67.8 C

TABLE I MAIN DESIGN DATA OF CONDENSERS

the figure) to the center water box through two banks of tube bundles and mixes in the center water box. Then it continues to go to the outlet water box (unseen in the figure) through another two banks of tube bundles. On the shell side, the main condenser is divided into three separate compartments (pressure zones) by two internal support plates. Steam exhausted from three low-pressure turbine sections is directed down to their corresponding condenser compartments, which have different vacuums. The two auxiliary condensers receive exhaust steam from two feedwater-pump turbines, respectively. Circulating water from the natural-draft cooling towers is pumped and goes in parallel to the main condenser and the two auxiliary condensers. The main design data of condensers are listed in Table I. CW to condensers is provided by the circulating water system (CWS). The CWS is a closed cycled cooling system utilizing two natural-draft cooling towers. CW pumps take suction from the main circulating flume. The pumps discharge to two parallel strings to the main condenser and auxiliary condensers and the CWS terminates in two natural-draft cooling towers. Feedwater system and condensate systems have two strings of feedwater heaters,2 each including six stages (#2, #4, #6, #8, #10, and #12). Except for stage #6, whose drain is pumped forward to the main feedwater stream, all stages cascade their
2Here feedwater heaters refers to heaters in both feedwater system and condensate system. Consequently, feedwater heater system includes all of these heaters.

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Fig. 5. Scheme III: Feedwater heater drain recycling.

Fig. 3. Scheme I: ACCW flow reduction.

Fig. 4. Scheme II: ACCW discharge diversion (refer to Fig. 1 for the inboard-water-box location in the main condenser).

Fig. 6. Effects on power generation of Auxiliary condenser CW flow change. T : CW inlet temperature; P : System net power generation at design value of auxiliary condenser CW flow of 12:8 10 lb=h (1613 kg/s).

auxiliary condensers, respectively. This means that the circulating water discharged from auxiliary condensers can still be used in the main condenser provided that piping configuration and hydraulic (pressure loss) analysis allows. For this analysis, a splitter is assumed on the auxiliary-condenser CW discharge pipe, from which a part of or all auxiliary CW flow can be diverted to the main condenser through its center water box. A schematic diagram of this scheme is shown in Fig. 4. C. Scheme III: Feedwater Heater Drain Recycling For system simplicity, drain of feedwater heaters in most power plants is cascaded to the next lower pressure stage. In this configuration, the drain from the higher-pressure stage expels steam extraction to lower-pressure stages thus resulting in irreversible losses. When the drain flows into the main condenser, a part of cooling capability of circulating water is lost. Both cases result in loss of power generation. To avoid this kind of loss, feedwater heater drain can be pumped directly to the main feedwater stream. In practice, pumps may not be appropriate for all stages. But for analysis purposes, all stages except stages #6, where drain pumps already exist and, #12, are considered to have one drain pump for each string that can pump partial or full flow of the drain to the main feedwater line. The principle to add drain pumps to the system is that the drain temperature should be no less than the main condensate or feedwater temperature where the drain is pumped. With this constraint, the drain from each stage is pumped to the point up-

stream of that FW heater (feedwater inlet). Since the drain from FWH #6 is pumped forward to the main FW line, there is no need to change the drain flow for stage #6. Since the pressure at the FWH stage #6 drain pump inlet is lower than the drain pressure of FWH stage #4, the drain from stage #4 can be directly drained to the inlet of FWH stage #6 drain pump. Schematic diagram of this scheme is shown in Fig. 5. V. RESULTS A. Scheme I: AC CW Flow Reduction Main results corresponding to three CW temperatures, 30 C (86 F), 22.4 C, (72.3 F), and 15.6 C (60 F) are shown in Fig. 6. Results show that at high CW temperature, decreasing CW flow to the auxiliary condenser results in an increase of net power generation. With further decrease of CW flow, however, net power generation will drop down. There exists an optimal CW flow at which the power generation reaches the maximum at that temperature. As CW temperature decreases, this optimal CW flow increases. At about 13 C (55 ), the optimal CW flow reaches the design value. This trend is clearly shown in Fig. 7 (a constraint for the optimization is set that the maximum CW flow to the auxiliary condenser is the design value. Net electricity increase by operating the system at optimal CW flow to auxiliary condensers is 838, 227, and 0 kW at CW temperature of 30 C, 22.4 C, and 15.6 C, respectively. The reason for the electricity power increase at high CW inlet temperature is that the operation of auxiliary condensers does

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Fig. 7. Relationship between the optimal CW flow and the CW temperature. The upper bound of the CW flow is chosen as the design value (12:8 10 lb=h or 1613 kg/h).

Fig. 8. Effects on power generation of auxiliary condenser CW discharge : CW inlet temperature; P : Gross power diversion to main condenser. T generation without auxiliary condenser CW discharge diversion.

not match that of the main condenser at the design CW flow (i.e., auxiliary condensers consume excessive CW to produce a low pressure). Reduction of the CW flow to auxiliary condensers can increase CW flow to the main condenser, lowering the main condenser pressure and, hence, increasing the work done by steam in the low-pressure turbine sections. Although this change does reduce the efficiency of the auxiliary condensers by increasing steam flow to drive feedwater pumps, this reduction is offset by the main condenser vacuum improvement if the flow change is within a proper range. At low CW temperature, however, the pressures at main condenser compartments are already very low, a small amount of CW flow increase does not significantly improve vacuum in the main condenser. However, the decrease in auxiliary-condenser CW flow makes auxiliary condensers less efficient and this effect is not offset by the vacuum improvement in the main condenser. This can be seen in Fig. 6 for the case that CW inlet temperature is 15.6 C (60 F), which shows that the optimal auxiliary CW flow rate is close to the design point. B. Scheme II: Diversion of Auxiliary-Condenser CW Discharge Main results corresponding to three CW temperatures, 30 C (86 F), 22.4 C (72.3 F), and 15.6 C (60 F) are shown in Fig. 8. At a given CW inlet temperature, electricity output increases due to auxiliary-condenser CW (ACCW) discharge diversion is almost proportional to the diverting fraction. The maximum electricity output increases are expected to be 1138, 770, and 263 kW obtained at CW inlet temperature of 30 C (86 F), 22.4 C, (72.3 F), and 15.6 C (60 F), respectively, with full ACCW discharge diversion. (In this sense, the expression ACCW redirection can be used.) The main contribution of electricity output due to ACCW discharge diversion is mainly from the main condenser hot compartment vacuum improvement. There is no vacuum change in the cold compartment and little vacuum change in the warm compartment.

Fig. 9. Effects of feedwater drain diversion.

The electricity output increase also varies with the CW inlet temperature. This trend is explicitly depicted in Fig. 8. Unlike ACCW flow optimization, however, the electricity output increase from auxiliary-condenser CW discharge diversion is always the greatest at full diversion for all CW temperatures. C. Scheme III: Feedwater Heater Drain Recycling Increase of net power generation from the system is plotted versus the drain diversion fraction for all four individual considered FWH stages and for some stage combinations at an air temperature of 21 (70 ), shown in Fig. 9. It is clear from Fig. 9 that for all individual FWH stages and all combinations, the net increase of power generation (power consumption of drain pumps has been deducted) is an increasing function of diversion fractions. At full flow diversions, power generation is maximized. Table II gives power generation net increase at full flow diversion for several feedwater heater stage combinations.

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TABLE II NET POWER GENERATION INCREASE AT FULL DIVERSION OF DIFFERENT FWH STAGE COMBINATIONS

ficiency of the heater drain pumps. To benefit from Scheme III, there is a certain limit for pump efficiency since the power consumption of these pumps takes a significant part of the additional power generation due to this modification. Too low pump efficiency may cause the reversed effectnet power output increase may be negative. Close monitoring of the system operation and careful maintenance of the system are essential for better system performance. VI. CONCLUSIONS Thermal efficiency improvement by some proposed auxiliary system modifications has been investigated for TMI nuclear power plant. Electricity output can be increased by up to 839 kW and 1138 kW with auxiliary-condenser circulating-water flow reduction and CW discharge diversion, respectively. Redirection of ACCW to the main condenser is shown to be easy to implement and has a persistent effect on thermal efficiency improvement. Though complicated by the requirement of drain pumps, feedwater heater drain recycling is also able to significantly increase electricity output, given that the pump efficiency is not too low. Drain recycling at stage #10 is shown to be the most promising, which is predicted to increase power output of 926 kW. REFERENCES
[1] Z. Huang, R. M. Edwards, and M. Fauber, Thermal performance analysis of TMI NPP auxiliary condenser CW reduction and diversion using integrated optimization procedure, in Proc. 8th Int. Conf. Nucl. Eng., Apr. 2000, ICONE-8731. [2] TMI Operations Plant Manual, 3rd ed., 1994. [3] W. Lin, Quantitative Analysis of Thermal Systems in Fossil Fired Power Plants (in Chinese). Xian, China: Xian Jiao Tong Univ. Press, 1985. [4] Optimization Toolbox for Use with MATLAB, Users Guide, The Mathworks, Inc., 1999. [5] G. L. Minner et al., PEPSE: Applications Manual: SCIENTECH, Inc., 1998. [6] G. Connell, Visual Basic 5: From the Ground Up. New York: McGrawHill, 1997.

From the point of cost-benefit consideration, modification made only to stage #10 might be of interest to be implemented. D. Comparison of the Three Schemes Scheme I (auxiliary-condenser CW flow reduction) may be the easiest one to implement with respect to mechanical system change. Only a control valve is needed to install on the CW supply branch line to the auxiliary condensers and no piping reconfiguration is required. However, for optimal operation, the auxiliary CW flow should be automatically adjusted in accordance with CW inlet temperature. To this end, a reliable control system needs to be developed and maintained, which causes an additional cost for the reconstruction and operation/maintenance of the system. Scheme II (diversion of auxiliary-condenser CW discharge to the main condenser) leads to a consistent electricity output increase and this increase is greater than that from Scheme I (ACCW flow reduction). This means that there is no parameter to adjust for optimal operation. However, this change requires retrofit of the plant piping system, specifically, lines from the auxiliary condensers to the center water box of the main condenser need to be added. For proper operation, the pressure at the center box must be lower than that at the auxiliary condenser CW outlet with a certain amount of margin. Detailed system hydraulic analyzes are needed, especially on the impacts of this change on the CW flow to auxiliary condensers and the main condenser. Moreover, it needs the analysis of possible impacts on the mechanical structure of the main condenser. The advantage of Scheme II over Scheme I is that once the system configuration has been modified, there is no additional cost for system operation and maintenance. Scheme III (feedwater heater drain recycling) has the similar effect on net power generation increase as Scheme II (ACCW flow redirection). However, unlike Scheme II, which only needs piping reconfiguration, Scheme III needs additional active mechanical componentsheater drain pumpsto overcome the backpressure on the main feedwater line. The main concern is the significantly increased cost for system retrofit and operation/maintenance. Another concern is about the mechanical ef-

Zhengyu Huang received the B.S. and M.S degrees in nuclear engineering and nuclear engineering and nuclear safety from Harbin Shipbuilding Engineering Institute, Harbin, China, in 1988 and 1991, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in nuclear engineering from The Pennsylvania State University, University Park. Currently, he is a Software Engineer with Thermoflow, Inc., Sudbury, MA. He was an Engineer with Beijing Institute of Nuclear Engineering, Beijing, China, from 1991 to 1997. His research interests include power plant system heat balance calculation and system optimization, reactor control, and simulation.

Robert M. Edwards (M89) received the B.S. degree in nuclear engineering from The Pennsylvania State University (PSU), University Park, in 1971, the M.S. degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1972, and the Ph.D. degree in nuclear engineering from PSU in 1991. Currently, he is a Professor in nuclear engineering at Pennsylvania State University. Prior to returning to PSU, he was the Director of software development at LeMont Scientific, State College, PA. In the early 1970s, he was with General Atomic, San Diego, CA. His research interests are in control and simulation.

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