Traditional power plants nationwide consume hundreds of billions of gallons of water per day, but two federally funded teams led by university professors aim to create a groundbreaking research study in dry cooling systems to conserve the natural resource.
Cooling systems in standard power plants use turbine generators that rely on water sources for power, accounting for billions of gallons of water use each day. In 2005, electricity-producing power plants consumed about 201 billion gallons of water per day, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Aided by $5 million in funding from the U.S. Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, university mechanical engineering professors Bao Yang and Michael Ohadi hope to change that.
The university projects are two of 23 nationwide funded by ARPA-E’s Advanced Research in Dry Cooling program through a $60 million investment. ARID targets research in dry cooling systems, which use air rather than water to cool.
States with limited access to fresh water sources, such as California and Nevada, create problems for power plants that rely on water to function, especially in the summer months, Yang said.
To combat this, Yang hopes to use waste heat from the power plant to produce cooling to disperse the steam out of the turbine.
“We want to cost-effectively and efficiently reduce waste heat with different cooling technologies,” Yang said. “Professor Ohadi and I both proposed a different approach, but we have the same goal: to save water in power plants.”
Yang’s project, “Novel Microemulsion Absorption Systems for Supplemental Power Plant Cooling,” uses a microemulsion liquid absorbent, which university researchers discovered after 10 years of research and thousands of samples, Yang said.
Using microemulsion liquid as the absorbent increases the system’s efficiency, Yang said, potentially up to three times as much as typical power plant absorption refrigeration systems.
Ohadi’s project, “Novel Polymer Composite Heat Exchanger for Dry Cooling of Power Plants,” also hopes to improve power plant technologies through new heat exchangers. In his proposal, he utilizes a new polymer composite for cooling, which would replace current metallic heat exchangers.
The team’s new composite heat exchangers use a polymeric material that is durable, cost-efficient and has a high resistance to corrosion, Ohadi said.
Both teams’ researchers have partnered with outside research institutions and corporations, including Stony Brook University, the Electric Power Research Institute, WorleyParsons Group, Rocky Research, Boeing Research and Technology and Michigan Technological University.
The project funding reflects ARPA-E’s desire to develop new technology in the energy and sustainability fields, ARPA-E Director Ellen D. Williams said in a news release.
“Investing in innovating dry cooling technologies for power plants as well as intermediate density fusion illustrates ARPA-E’s role in accelerating energy research and development,” Williams said.
University researchers in engineering have received more than $10 million through ARPA-E funding in the past six months, said Jennifer Rooks, spokeswoman for the aerospace and mechanical engineering departments spokeswoman. In December, Yang and Reinhard Radermacher, a mechanical engineering professor at this university, were awarded money from ARPA-E for two separate projects focused on designing and creating technology that keeps people cool or warm, thus lowering the energy burden placed on buildings — what Yang calls a “smart clothing” project.
The university currently uses a relatively energy-efficient electricity source, former Student Government Association Sustainability Director Ori Gutin, but there is an opportunity in the field for the university to be innovative and look at solutions “beyond just the power plant,” located just off the campus.
Gutin cited biofuel and biogas research being conducted at other universities and the University of California’s pledge to be carbon-neutral by 2025 as enviable goals and acknowledged the university teams’ efforts to increase sustainability efforts.
“In terms of energy production, we should always be looking to increase the efficiency of the power plants, their fuel transmissions and the electronics in buildings that are using the energy,” he said. “There’s always room to improve and explore.”
Though their current research is focused on power plants, Yang sees a potential for additional applications, perhaps even in people’s residential buildings.
“Right now, in homes we use compressor-based air conditioners, which need electricity. Our system, though, is heat-driven, or thermal-driven, and uses heat to produce cooling,” Yang said. “Compressor-based systems just consume electricity — our system could potentially save a lot of people a lot of money one day.”
