Open Access

ARTICLE

Optimization of a Single Flash Geothermal Power Plant Powered by a Trans-Critical Carbon Dioxide Cycle Using Genetic Algorithm and Nelder-Mead Simplex Method

by Yashar Aryanfar^1,*, Jorge Luis García Alcaraz²

1 Department of Electric Engineering and Computation, Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, México
2 Department of Industrial Engineering and Manufacturing, Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, México

* Corresponding Authors: Yashar Aryanfar. Email: ,

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Geothermal Power Generation: Energy, Exergy and Optimization)

Energy Engineering 2023, 120(2), 263-275. https://doi.org/10.32604/ee.2023.022587

Received 16 March 2022; Accepted 16 September 2022; Issue published 29 November 2022

Abstract

The usage of renewable energies, including geothermal energy, is expanding rapidly worldwide. The low efficiency of geothermal cycles has consistently highlighted the importance of recovering heat loss for these cycles. This paper proposes a combined power generation cycle (single flash geothermal cycle with trans-critical CO₂ cycle) and simulates in the EES (Engineering Equation Solver) software. The results show that the design parameters of the proposed system are significantly improved compared to the BASIC single flash cycle. Then, the proposed approach is optimized using the genetic algorithm and the Nelder-Mead Simplex method. Separator pressure, steam turbine output pressure, and CO₂ turbine inlet pressure are three assumed variable parameters, and exergy efficiency is the target parameter. In the default operating mode, the system exergy efficiency was 32%, increasing to 39% using the genetic algorithm and 37% using the Nelder-Mead method.

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