Technology Development of Energy Saving and Performance Assessment for the Cooling Tower

摘要

This paper presents a model-based approach to assess operation performance and to optimize the operation mode of a set of fans in the cooling tower by considering the turbine-generator and cooling tower as an integrated system. The optimization was formulated in order to maximize the net power output, which is the result of subtracting the power consumption of the fans in the cooling tower from the power generated by the turbine-generator. The operation of both units were characterized by a data-driven method, a local model network, which presented a set of local models in the format of linear equations. The optimization problem was then solved by linear programming algorithm. With purely mathematical work and without any change in the existing plant, the energy saving was handily accomplished. This study reports on an energy saving of 0.5% of the power output of a TG system. With the same models, the present characteristic parameters of a cooling tower could be calculated. Comparing the design parameters, the operation effectiveness of the cooling tower could be handily calculated on line.