98 Geothermal Power Plants: Principles, Applications, Case Studies and Environmental Impact

and the separator. Furthermore, we will neglect any other pressure losses associated
with transmitting the separated steam from the separator to the turbine. It is not dif-
ficult to accommodate these losses, but the methodology of optimization is more
clearly demonstrated by ignoring them here. We will also assume that it is possible
to operate the condenser at a pressure of 0.123 bar or a condensing steam tempera-
ture of 50 C.
Equations (5.6)
(5.17) are used to analyze the flashing, separation, and turbine
expansion processes. The calculations will proceed in two phases: in phase 1 we will
determine the specific power output for a range of separator pressures (or equiva-
lently, temperatures), and in phase 2 we will find the total power by factoring in
the variation of the total flow rate as a function of the separator pressure. Phase 1
calculations are independent of the well productivity and yield the result in units of
MW/(kg/s).
The calculations rely on accurate properties of the geothermal fluid, here assumed
to be pure water. Thus, normal Steam Tables [15,16] are used to find all thermo-
dynamic properties for the liquid and the vapor.
The results of the phase 1 calculations are given in the table and figure below.

Specific power output vs. separator temperature

0.088
T-sep P-sep w (MW/kg/s)
Specific output, MW(kg/s)

0.087
125 2.321 0.08405
0.086
130 2.701 0.08515
0.085
135 3.120 0.08578
0.084
140 3.613 0.08595
0.083
145 4.154 0.08568
0.082
150 4.758 0.08496
0.081
155 5.431 0.08382
0.080
160 6.178 0.08225 120 130 140 150 160
Separator temperature, C

It can be seen that the maximum specific power occurs at a separator temperature
of about 140 C or a separator pressure of 3.6 bar,a. The optimum specific power is
about 86 kW for each kg/s of total flow from the well. Notice that the optimum sepa-
rator temperature is close to the average temperature between the reservoir and the
condenser, namely, 145 C [(240 C 150 C)/2 5 145 C]. This simple relationship can
be used as a first approximation to determine the best separator temperature. In the
following section, we will derive this “rule of thumb.”
Next, the actual well flow rate is found from the productivity curve at each assumed
wellhead pressure and multiplied by the corresponding specific power to obtain the
actual power in MW. For this purpose it is convenient to correlate the productivity
curve with the best least-squares fit. An excellent fit is obtained using a cubic
equation:

_ total 5 99:663 22:6287 P2 1 0:5802 P22 20:04212 P32 ;

m ð5:32Þ

where the pressure is in bar,a and the mass flow rate is in kg/s.