Resource Efficiency

SRI International and PPG Industries are integrating SRI’s proprietary Spectrally Tuned All-Polymer Technology for Inducing Cooling (STATIC) technology into a novel structure for use as a radiative cooling system that can provide supplemental cooling for power plant water during the daytime or nighttime. The two-layer polymer structure covers a pool holding power plant condenser discharge water. The cover prevents sunlight from penetrating it and warming the water, while allowing thermal energy to radiate to the sky, even during the day.

Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) will work with Lehigh University, the University of Missouri, and Evapco, Inc. to design and build a novel cool storage system that will increase the efficiency of a plant’s dry-cooling system. During the day, the system will transfer waste heat from the plant’s heated condenser water via an array of heat pipes to a cool storage unit containing a phase-change material (PCM). The planned PCMs are salt hydrates that can be tailored to store and release large amounts of thermal energy, offering a way to store waste heat until it can be efficiently rejected.

Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), working with SPX Cooling Technologies, is developing a low-cost, passive radiative cooling panel for supplemental dry cooling at power plants. PARC’s envisioned end product is a cooling module, consisting of multiple radiative cooling panels tiled over large, enclosed water channels that carry water from an initial cooling system, such as a dry-cooling tower. The cooling panel consists of a two-layer structure in which a reflective film sits atop a unique metamaterial-based emitter.

General Electric (GE) Global Research will design, manufacture, and test an absorption heat pump that can be used for supplemental dry cooling at thermoelectric power plants. The team’s project features a novel, absorbent-enabled regenerator that doubles the coefficient of performance of conventional absorption heat pumps. The new absorbents demonstrate greater hygroscopic potential, or the ability to prevent evaporation.

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and its partners will design, fabricate, and demonstrate an indirect dry-cooling system that features a rotating mesh heat exchanger with encapsulated phase-change materials (PCMs) such as paraffin, which can absorb and reject heat efficiently. The novel system can be used downstream from a water-cooled steam surface condenser to cool water to a temperature near ambient air temperature, eliminating the need for a cooling tower.

University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers will develop a dry-cooling system, featuring an enhanced air-cooled condenser and a novel daytime peak-load shifting system (PLSS) that will enable dry cooling for power plants even during hot days. The team will transform a conventional air-cooled condenser by incorporating flow-modulating surfaces and modifying the tubular geometry of the system, both of which will reduce heat transfer resistance and increase the thermal surface area.

Colorado State University (CSU) and its partners, Modine and Barber-Nichols, will develop a thermally powered supplemental cooling system for thermoelectric power plants that will enable dry cooling. The technology features a transformational turbo-compressor and low-cost, high-performance heat exchangers that are currently mass produced for the HVAC industry. To operate, low-grade waste heat from the power plant combustion exhaust gases, or flue gas, is captured and used to power a highly efficient turbo-compressor system.

Applied Research Associates (ARA) will design and fabricate a dry-cooling system that overcomes the inherent thermodynamic performance penalty of air-cooled systems, particularly under high ambient temperatures. ARA’s ACTIVE cooling technology uses a polymerization thermochemical cycle to provide supplemental cooling and cool storage that can work as a standalone system or be synchronized with air-cooled units to cool power plant condenser water. The cool storage will be completed in two stages.