Can Waste Heat of a Thermal Power Plant Be a Key for Absorption Cooling Systems

Abstract

Waste Heat Driven Absorption Cooling Systems (WHDACS) can be simply defined as a cooling system which uses thermal fluid couples such as LiBr-H2O or NH3-H2O to decrease the temperature of selected space via waste heat usage in generator. This study focuses on the use waste heat that is discharged from thermal power plants in order to meet heat load of generator used in absorption cooling systems. Yatagan thermal power plant that has 3 discharged waste heat units with 145 MWt per unit. 172°C steam temperature and 1.18bar steam pressure is examined as a case study. LiBr-H2O ACS is designed and optimum working parameters of system elements are determined by both considering single effect of the parameter and interacted effect of the temperature and concentration ratio parameters on Coefficient of Performance (COP) and Exergetic Coefficient of Performance (EPC) of the system. Optimum values of T1, T2, T4. T5, Xw, Xs for single effect are found as; T1=100°C. T2=40°C. T4=10°C for max COP 4°C for max EPC. T5=70°C. Xw=45% and Xs=63.41%. Optimum values for interacted independent parameters are found as 100°C for T1. 46.86°C for T2. 9.996°C for T4 and 70°C for T5. 45% for Xw. 60% for Xs by using Nelder-Mead Method. It is observed that the waste heat discharged from Yatagan Thermal Power Plant is convenient to establish an absorption cooling system. Cooling potential of WHDACS is calculated 84MWt approximately for each waste heat unit. © 2025, Sakarya University. All rights reserved.