Comparative study of RDE and conventional plant for moderate scale power generations

Abstract

Electricity generation processes from coal burning at conventional plant and nuclear at Reaktor Daya Eksperimental (RDE) plant are compared using Cycle-Tempo. RDE is a conceptual demonstration nuclear plant with thermal capacity 10 MWth to generate steam and turbine to expand into condenser pressure and electricity generation. In reactor vessel, operating conditions are maintained on pressure drop 0.25 bars, inlet temperature 250 °C, and outlet temperature 700 °C. Environment conditions are set in pressure 1.013 bars and temperature 35 °C. Objective of present paper is to analyses performance of those plants on moderate scale power. In analysis, power plants are simplified into available components within code Cycle-Tempo, and approximated into steady-state flow. Mathematical formulation method is applied to calculate mass and energy balances on each component. Results show that RDE has values of generator power output 2863.8 kW, thermal efficiency 27.051 %, turbine efficiency 88.81 %, and back work ratio 0.87; conventional plant has values of generator power output 2863.8 kW, thermal efficiency 25.022 %, turbine efficiency 80.34 %, and back work ratio 0.869. It is concluded that RDE is properly used for utilizing nuclear heat source on moderate scale power plant.