Geothermal Power Plants

What are Geothermal Power Plants?

There are three geothermal power plant technologies being used to convert
hydrothermal fluids to electricity. The conversion technologies are dry
steam, flash, and binary cycle. The type of conversion used depends on the
state of the fluid (whether steam or water) and its temperature. Dry steam
power plants systems were the first type of geothermal power generation
plants built. They use the steam from the geothermal reservoir as it comes
from wells, and route it directly through turbine/generator units to
produce electricity. Flash steam plants are the most common type of
geothermal power generation plants in operation today. They use water at
temperatures greater than 360°F (182°C) that is pumped under high
pressure to the generation equipment at the surface. Binary cycle
geothermal power generation plants differ from Dry Steam and Flash
Steam systems in that the water or steam from the geothermal reservoir
never comes in contact with the turbine/generator units.

Types of Geothermal Power Plants

Dry Steam Power Plants

Dry steam power plants in California.

Steam plants use hydrothermal fluids that are primarily steam. The steam
goes directly to a turbine, which drives a generator that produces
electricity. The steam eliminates the need to burn fossil fuels to run the
turbine. (Also eliminating the need to transport and store fuels!) This is the
oldest type of geothermal power plant. It was first used at Lardarello in
Italy in 1904, and is still very effective. Steam technology is used today at
The Geysers in northern California, the world's largest single source of
geothermal power. These plants emit only excess steam and very minor
amounts of gases.
Flash Steam Power Plants

Hydrothermal fluids above 360°F (182°C) can be used in flash plants to

make electricity. Fluid is sprayed into a tank held at a much lower pressure
than the fluid, causing some of the fluid to rapidly vaporize, or "flash." The
vapor then drives a turbine, which drives a generator. If any liquid remains
in the tank, it can be flashed again in a second tank to extract even more
energy.
Binary-Cycle Power Plants

Most geothermal areas contain moderate-temperature water (below 400°F).

Energy is extracted from these fluids in binary-cycle power plants. Hot
geothermal fluid and a secondary (hence, "binary") fluid with a much lower
boiling point than water pass through a heat exchanger. Heat from the
geothermal fluid causes the secondary fluid to flash to vapor, which then
drives the turbines. Because this is a closed-loop system, virtually nothing
is emitted to the atmosphere. Moderate-temperature water is by far the
more common geothermal resource, and most geothermal power plants in
the future will be binary-cycle plants.

The Future of Geothermal Electricity

Steam and hot water reservoirs are just a small part of the geothermal
resource. The Earth's magma and hot dry rock will provide cheap, clean,
and almost unlimited energy as soon as we develop the technology to use
them. In the meantime, because they're so abundant, moderate-
temperature sites running binary-cycle power plants will be the most
common electricity producers.
 Before geothermal electricity can be considered a key element of the
U.S. energy infrastructure, it must become cost-competitive with
traditional forms of energy. The U.S. Department of Energy is working
with the geothermal industry to achieve $0.03 to $0.05 per kilowatt-
hour. We believe the result will be about 15,000 megawatts of new
capacity within the next decade.

Power plant operators have the responsibility to make sure unit/process systems
function properly. Their job includes the following:
• Consider personnel safety as the primary objective and ensure production processes
are operating safely
• Continually monitor instrumentation and the operation of equipment
• Make adjustments to keep system process variables such as flows, temperatures and
pressures within acceptable ranges
• Detect potential and actual problems and take corrective action to prevent the
interruption of system operations
• Analyze operational trends and take corrective actions
• Use standard operating procedures to start/stop production equipment
• Maintain communication with other operators, maintenance and the management
Benefits of becoming a power plant operator:
• High salary. Depending upon industry and location, generally entry-level power
plant operators make $13.00 to $20.00 per hour. After a few years of experience
generally the pay range is $18.00 to $30.00/hr.
• Stable employment. Power plant operators are rarely laid off.
• Employment portability. Power plants are found in all regions of the United States.
• Career enhancement potential. Many entry-level power plant workers eventually
make their way into supervisory and management positions.
• Better benefits. Generally power plants have above-average benefits for workers.

How the plant works

A mixture of steam and geothermal brine is transported from the wells to a central
separation station. After being separated from the brine, the steam is piped through
moisture separators to steam heat exchangers inside the plant building. The steam can be
piped to steam turbines for co-generation of electricity. Unutilized steam is released
through a steam exhaust.
In the steam heat exchangers, the steam is cooled under pressure into condensate whose
heat is then transferred to cold fresh water in condensate heat exchangers. The condensate
cools down in the process to 20°C. Separated geothermal brine has its heat transferred to
cold fresh water by geothermal brine heat exchangers. Since the mineral-rich geothermal
brine causes scaling that coats the heat exchanger pipes, steel particles are allowed to
circulate in the stream, impacting against the pipes to remove any scaling as it occurs.
Cold water is pumped from wells at Grumelur, near the shore of Lake Thingvallavatn, to
a storage tank by the power house. From there, it is pumped to the heat exchangers where
its temperature is raised to 85-90°C.
Since the fresh water is saturated with dissolved oxygen that would cause corrosion after
being heated, it is passed through deaerators where it is boiled at low vacuum pressure to
remove the dissolved oxygen and other gases, cooling it to 82-85°C.

The heating process

Heat exchangers

Hitaveita Reykjavikur operated a pilot heating plant at Nesjavellir during 1974 - 1990.
Various types of heat exchangers have been tested. Conventional plate heat exchangers
are used for the condensation of steam from the separators and to cool the condensate.
They are equipped with EPDM-gaskets and made of titanium plates to avoid stress
corrosion, as it is not possible to guarantee problem free operation if stainless steel plates
are used.
Conventional heat exchangers cannot be used for the separated water due to the high
content of dissolved solids (TDS 1200 PPM) which would cause severe scaling of silica.
A new type of heat exchanger, in the geothermal context, has been tested successfully in
the pilot plant. These are the so-called "fluidized bed heat exchangers", or FBHX made
by Eskla Heat exchangers BV in the Netherlands. They are shell and tube heat
exchangers operating in a vertical position . Stainless steel balls, 1.5 mm in diameter,
circulate in the flowstream of the separated water. They impact continuously against the
pipe surfaces and remove any scaling that may form. A mechanical device is fitted to the
inlet and outlet of the heat exchangers to keep the steel balls evenly distributed in the
flow stream. The FBHX heat exchangers make possible the direct utilization of the heat
in the water from the separators and contribute to the overall economy of the heating
process.

Deaeration

The cold ground water is saturated with dissolved oxygen and becomes very corrosive
when heated. A conventional thermal deaeration method is used where the ground water
is boiled under vacuum after heating to remove the oxygen. The cold ground water has a
pH-value of 7.5-8.5. It is partially degassed through boiling after heating. This raises the
pH-value to 9.0-9.5 and the oxygen content is reduced down to about 50 ppb. The
remaining dissolved oxygen is removed through injection of small amounts of
geothermal steam that contains acid gases (H2S and CO2). Hydrogen sulfide gas reacts
rapidly with the dissolved oxygen. The final water product then has a pH-value of 8.5-
9.0. It is free of dissolved oxygen, and contains 0.5-2.0 PPM of H2S. The remaining H2S
gas reacts against any oxygen absorption in accumulators and ensures that the "pleasant
smell", which the users of geothermal water in Iceland have become accustomed to, is
retained.
Amorphous Mg-Si scaling was formed in the distribution system in Reykjavik during the
first months of operation of the plant, due to the high pH-value of the mixture of the
geothermal water from the low-temperature fields and the heated ground water from
Nesjavellir. Different ratios of these two water types control the pH-value. Scaling can
only be avoided by reducing the amount of geothermal water in the mixture below 10-
15%. Therefore the original plan of mixing these two water types in the distribution
network has been abandoned. They will be used separately.

The waste geothermal water

Geothermal heating plants in high-temperature fields only utilize the thermal energy of
the geothermal fluid, which, after use in heat exchangers. must be disposed of with
minimum risk to the environment. This disposal can be performed in two different ways,
i.e. at surface or into subsurface aquifers. Surface disposal can be carried out in a similar
way to the natural disposal of flow from the hot springs, i.e. into the brook in the
Nesjavellir valley, which disappears into a lava field before reaching Lake
Thingvallavatn. Subsurface disposal requires that the waste water is pumped back into
the geothermal reservoir. This latter method is obviously more friendly to the
environment but more expensive. It can also be more difficult to operate due to scaling in
the reinfection wells and their aquifers.
There are two important features of the waste water from high-temperature fields that
may have a negative effect on the environment. These are the raised temperature of
surface waters and ground water aquifers and the presence of hazardous chemicals in the
waste water, i.e. arsenic, mercury, boron, etc. Extensive research has been carried out at
Nesjavellir with respect to disposal of the waste water. Chemical and biological
measurements have been carried out at Lake Thingvallavatn since 1979 to define the pre-
exploitation value for future reference. All the wells at Nesjavellir were flow tested in
1984-1987 as a part of the exploration program. Large amounts of geothermal water were
disposed of at the surface during these tests without any apparent effects on water
chemistry at the shoreline of the lake. This is in agreement with the prediction of a
ground water model that simulates fluid flow and distribution of chemicals in the ground
water system at Nesjavellir.
Chemical analysis of the geothermal fluid show that dangerous chemicals, which may be
expected from the condensate of the steam phase, are almost absent.
All arguments seem to indicate that surface disposal of the waste water can be used for
the geothermal power plant at Nesjavellir.

THE GEOTHERMAL POWER PLANT

General outline

Due to scaling, the geothermal fluid from the Nesjavellir field

cannot be used directly in the space heating distribution network.
The power plant therefore uses the geothermal energy to heat
cold ground water indirectly in heat exchangers. The heated
water is treated so that it can be used directly in the network.
The geothermal power plant at Nesjavellir consists of the
following five sub-systems all of which have separate functions:
  Cold water supply
 Geothermal fluid supply
 Heating and treatment of cold ground water
 Transmission pipeline to Reykjavik
 Electricity co-generation

These five sub-systems of the power plant are described below along with their main
functions.
The planned capacity of the co-generation power plant is 400 MA for district heating and
over 80 MWe when fully developed. The design is for two power stations of similar size
which will be developed in steps as follows:
Power station I:
Phase 1: 100 MWt
Phase 2: 100 MWt + 8 MWe
Phase 3: 30-37 MWe

Power station II:

Phase 4: 100 MW, + 23 MWe
Phase 5: 100 MWt + 23 MWe

The first phase of power station I became operational in September 1990 but the second
phase is being built in two steps in 1991 (already in operation) and 1993.

The cold water supply

Cold ground water (4°C) is pumped from 30 m deep wells, at Gramelur, 6.2. km north of
the power house, in a lava field at the shore of Lake Thingvallavatn. The nominal
capacity of each pump is 278 kg/s, but larger pumps can be installed. Four wells have
been drilled so far with only 5 m spacing.
Pumping tests of up to 600 kg/s have confirmed a very high permeability of the lava
formation. The pumping station is designed so that it can be enlarged for future
developments and house additional wells.
The cold water is piped 6.2 km through a DN 900Æ mm pipe from Gramelur to the
power house. The pipe is made of ductile iron and has the same capacity as the
transmission pipeline to Reykjavik, i.e. about 1900 kg/s. The water is piped to an 1000
m3 storage tank by the power house, before entering the heat exchangers and deaerators.
The geothermal fluid supply

The geothermal fluid supply system gathers the fluid from the production wells, separates
water and steam and then pipes them individually to the power house.
Figure 15 shows a schematic flow diagram of the system. It includes two phase pipes
from the production wells, separators, pressure control valves and the mist eliminators by
the power house.
The wells discharge a mixture of water and
steam, which is transported along the two-
phase pipes to a central separator station
close to the power house instead of a
number of separators nearer to the wells.
The two-phase pipes are therefore
relatively long, which is made possible by
the high enthalpy of the well fluid and
favorable topography.
The dissolved solids are largely confined
to the separated water phase, as steam and
water are almost completely (over 99.9%) separated in the separators. The separator
station is situated 400 m away from the power house. The separated steam pipeline is
constructed so that some condensation occurs in the pipe. The condensate washes out
remaining dissolved solids in the steam. It is drained through control valves on the pipe
and the remaining droplets are removed in the mist eliminators.
Three wells (no. NJ-11, 13 and 16) are connected to the separator station for the first
phase, with well NG-6 as a reserve. These wells have a very high steam fraction
(enthalpy 2000 kJ/kg). It was therefore decided to operate the steam separators at 15 bara,
which is an unusually high pressure for a geothermal power plant. The advantages are
smaller pipes and more efficient electricity generation. Power station II will utilize wells
with lower fluid enthalpy and a lower separator pressure will be more practical, probably
8 bara.
Vertical separators have hitherto been chosen for steam separation in geothermal power
plants. Nesjavellir is the first one to operate conventional horizontal separators with
Chevron-filters, their main advantages being less height, hence lower cost for separator
building and much easier water level control. The capacity of each separator equals 35
kg/s or about 50 MWt (at 15 bara).
The mist eliminators are in principle of the same size and type (horizontal) as the main
separators but are fitted with "wire-mesh" filters.
No steam turbine is installed in the first phase of the power plant. The steam pressure
must therefore be lowered in control valves from 15 to 2 bara before entering the heat
exchangers. This causes superheating of the steam and very high noise level due to sonic
flow. The control valves are therefore placed in a separate building. Here, condensate is
injected into the superheated steam to cool it to saturation conditions to protect the
gaskets in the plate heat exchangers.
Electricity generation is planned in phases 2 and 3. The high pressure steam will then
expand in back pressure turbines, down to 2 bara, relieving the control valves of the high
 flow load. The exhaust steam from the turbine
will be piped directly to the heat exchangers.

The heat exchangers

The indirect heating of the cold ground water

takes place in the heat exchangers. About
82% of the heat is transferred in the steam
heat exchangers. The condensate heat
exchangers cool the condensate from the
steam heat exchangers down to 20°C and add
about 14% to the heating process, whereas the
heat exchanger for the separated geothermal
water finally contributes only 4% to the
heating in the first phase of the power plant.
Steam heat exchangers. Three out of four of
the installed steam heat exchangers have
titanium plates, but one of the heat
exchangers has plates of ANSI 316 stainless steel for testing the long-term corrosive
resistance of this material. The steam temperature is kept below 120°C (2 bara), the
maximum temperature that the EPDM material in the gaskets can withstand for a longer
period. They are manufactured by REHEAT in Sweden. Each titanium heat exchanger is
composed of 329 plates with a total heat exchange surface area of 280 m2, whereas the
stainless steel heat exchanger has 367 plates and heating surface of 312 m2. The heat
transfer coefficient is stated to be 4300 W/(m2K) for clean plates.
Condensate heat exchangers. The condensate heat exchangers are of the conventional
plate type. They extract the heat of the condensate from the steam heat exchangers
through cooling from about 90 to 20°C. Two heat exchangers connected in parallel were
installed in the first phase of the power plant, one acts as a reserve. They are
manufactured by REHEAT of Sweden. The plates are made of the ANSI 316 stainless
steel and have a heat exchange surface area of 190 m2
Heat exchangers for the separated water. There are two fluidized bed heat exchangers
(FBHX) connected in series, which transfer heat from the separated water to the cold
ground water. Each FBHX is equipped with 19 steel pipes (ID 50 mm, length 9 m). These
heat exchangers contribute only 4% to the heating process of the first phase, as stated
earlier. They are therefore installed mainly to obtain operational experience, as they will
play an important role in power station II when the low enthalpy wells will be connected.
The separated water is cooled down to 20-35°C before entering the waste water system.

Deaeration of the heated water

The main role of the two deaerators installed in the plant is to remove oxygen from the
heated fresh water. It enters the vessel at the temperature of 85-88°C and is deaerated
through boiling by vacuum pressure down to 83°C. The main flow enters the central part
of the deaerators. The water boils vigorously as it sprays over the filling material. Steam
and gas rise to the top. There the steam is condensed through injection of cold water
before the gas is ejected. At the bottom of the vessel a small amount of geothermal steam
is injected into the deaerated water to dissolve hydrogen sulfide. This lowers the pH, rids
the water of any remaining oxygen and acts against oxygen absorption.
The deaerators are made of stainless steel. They are 2.5 m in diameter and 11 m high. The
nominal capacity of each is 278 kg/s of heated water or 50% of the first phase.

The control system

The computerized control system for the geothermal power plant at Nesjavellir is
identical to the one that is used to supervise and control the pumping stations for the low-
temperature fields and the distribution network in Reykjavik. This control system was
tailor-made for Hitaveita Reykjavikur [Magnusson and Gunnarsson, 1989]. The
advantage of using the same type of control system is to reduce the investment, training
and maintenance costs.
The data processors. The control system is built around process computers of the Texas
Instruments 565 PC type. They take care of sequence and closed loop controls. They are
situated in the cold water pumping station, in the transformer station and in the power
house. Two process computers are connected together in the power house in a hot back-
up configuration, as they control the most critical part of the heating process.
The SCADA System. The process computers are connected to a SCADA system
(Supervision Control and Data Acquisition). The SCADA system is based on a PDP
11/83 computer in the control building at Nesjavellir . Peripherals such as color screens
and printers are located in the control rooms at Nesjavellir and in Reykjavik . The power
plant is operated round the clock from Reykjavik as the control room at Nesjavellir is
usually unmanned. The peripherals in Reykjavik are connected to the PDP 11/83
computer through a 64 kbit/s data multiplex and a fiber-optical data link.
The color VDU display system used is of the ABB Tesselator type. One of the
advantages of this system is that it can be connected to the SCADA computer by modem.
The Tesselator system can therefore easily be moved around, which facilitates all process
tests and remote monitoring.
Should the SCADA system fail, the power plant can be controlled from switch boards
that are connected directly to the PC's processors.
The operation of the power plant is fully automated. It can run all day without any
manual intervention, except during breakdowns. A closed loop control is used at all
stages and reserve pumps take over automatically in case of pump failure. Restarting of
the plant after shut-down is at present done manually but automation will be gradually
increased as experience is gained in the operation.
The process simulator. A computer model has been developed for the dynamic behavior
of the plant. It runs on a PC computer and the whole process is incorporated into the
model. A lot of effort was made to make the program code as effective as possible for
real time simulation.
The simulator consists of a PC computer that simulates the process, a process computer
with the same software as is used for the control system of the plant and a SCADA
system similar to the one used in the power plant. The process computer program had to
be modified to communicate with the PC computer instead of the sensors and control
system of the power plant.
The main advantages of the simulator are expected to be:
· The designers and operators can optimize regulation and control strategies in a simple
way. Tests that are either too risky or time consuming can be simulated.
· Training of personnel can be carried out without disturbing the operation of the plant.
Both normal operation and various types of breakdowns can be simulated.
· Development of an expert system for operation and maintenance of various parts of the
system.

Ventilation of buildings

The atmosphere at Nesjavellir is contaminated with H2S gas from the geothermal field.
Its concentration varies depending on weather conditions, but is estimated to be around
100 ppb on average. H2S is especially corrosive for copper and silver, materials that are
common in electrical and electronic equipment. Instruments are therefore largely situated
in air-tight buildings . These buildings are fitted with airlocks and an independent
ventilation system where the hydrogen sulfide gas is absorbed in active carbon filters.
The requirements for the indoor conditions are that the H2S content is below 3 ppb and
relative humidity around 40%.
This is expected to be achieved with the ventilation system by pressurizing the building
up to 100 kPa, recirculating about 85% of the air inside the building and placing the fresh
air intake about 6 m above the roof of the power house (20 m above ground level).
The power plant buildings have two additional ventilation systems installed. One is for
the visitors' reception hall and the other for the process halls. Both of these are
conventional systems without gas purification but they use the same fresh air intake.