GEOTHERMAL AND SOLAR THERMAL

Professor Hal Gurgenci

School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering
The University of Queensland

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 How long to work for a chicken dinner

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From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository

Rice for less work but with more energy

Rice Cultivation in Andhra Pradesh

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Online at http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/49204/
MPRA Paper No. 49204, posted 21. August 2013 11:53 UTC
 Electricity consumption per person

Australia
kWh/person

France

China
World

India
Bangladesh

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC/countries/1W-AU?display=graph

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 Lorentz and Gini Curves
100%
Gini coefficient is the ratio A/(A+Ao).

The area A is the yellow area.

Fraction of the consumption

The area Ao is the area under the

green (45o) line.
A
If the real world curve coincides with
the perfect line, the Gini coefficient
is zero.
Ao For extreme inequality, the Gini
coefficient is 1.
45o
Extreme inequality
100% Fraction of the population

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 Energy Inequality

Question: World energy inequality was very high in 1980. It is decreasing since then. This
means poorer countries are consuming more power. As this continues, we will need more
and more energy sources. Where will the new energy come from?
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Max Roser -- http://ourworldindata.org/data/resources-energy/energy-production-and-changing-energy-sources/

 Global Electricity Demand Projection

18000 TWh1
28000 TWh2

(1) http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC
(2) This is less than the BP projection. I am assuming the GFC slowdown will continue for a while taking the demand down.

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 Fossil Fuel Reserves
Proven Annual Proven Annual
Reserves Consumption Reserves Consumption
WORLD Mtoe Mtoe Years CHINA Mtoe Mtoe Years
Oil 156700 3614 43 Oil 3238 167 19
Coal 501172 2368 212 Coal 58900 797 74

(h.gurgenci@uq.edu.au)
H Gurgenci
Gas 158198 2292 69 Gas 1641 28.9 57
250
How long will reserves last at the current consumption rates?
200

150
Years

World
100 China

50

0
Oil Coal Gas

Source: Earth Trends Data Tables: Energy and Resources

Original Source: Proved Fossil Fuel Reserves and Average Annual Fossil Fuel Production
BP p.l.c., 2004. Statistical Review of World Energy. Available online at: http://www.bp.com/statisticalreview2004. 14
BP compiles these statistics using a combination of primary official sources, third party data from the OPEC Secretariat, Cedigaz,
World Energy Council, World Oil, Oil & Gas Journal, and an independent estimate of Russian reserves based on information in the
public domain.
16 Oct 2008
 Fossil Fuel Reserves into the future
We will run out of fossil
fuels in 120 years.
TWh

The depletion date will

be sooner if the
energy-poor nations
develop faster.

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 Energy Inequality is not sustainable
The energy poverty for the billions cannot be sustained.
Therefore, the future electricity generation growth may
even be faster
I will address the first point, the unsustainability of energy
poverty, on the next two slides.

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 Energy poor populations grow fast!

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 Future population growth

World population estimates from

1800 to 2100, based on "high",
"medium" and "low" United Nations
projections in 2010 and US Census
US Census estimates Bureau historical estimates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth

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 Climate Change and other hazards
I hope I have been able to demonstrate that we have a
serious problem before even starting to consider other
issues such as
Air pollution due to fossil fuel
Global warming

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 Is cheap electricity worth the health risk?

AIR POLLUTION

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 What colour is the sky?

2015
LUOYANG

2012
BEIJING

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 The sky is blue away from the smokestacks

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 Yes, it will cost money. Is it worth it?

If the cost of this water were 1 cent, Most would be happy to pay five
how much more would you be times as much or more to get this.
willing to pay for clean water?
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 Fossil fuels and renewables

The electricity from these plants

(you can hardly see them
because of the pollution they
make) costs 3 - 5 cents/kWh. The electricity from the above plants costs 10-
15 cents/kWh now, and will get cheaper when
we build more of them.
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 Electricity content of our income
Country kWh/person GDP[$]/person kWh/$ GDP
Australia 10000 43000 0.23
China 3500 12000 0.29

Australians consume 0.23 kWh for every $ they make

This means Australians spend
1.1% on electricity generation if using coal
3% if they were using renewable energy
Similar number for China
1.4% if using coal
4%if using renewable energy
This means if we all switch to renewable energy now, we
would be 2-3% poorer but we would have crystal clean air.
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 The risk to the world as we know it

CLIMATE CHANGE

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 The world IS getting warmer -- slowly

The term
temperature
anomaly means a
departure from a
reference value or
long-term
average.

https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf

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some will change more than the others
Figure 2 | Time series of the
annual maximum wet bulb
temperature(1) for each
ensemble member and GHG
scenario. Blue, green and red
lines represent the historical
(19762005), RCP4.5 (2071
2100) and RCP8.5 (2071
2100) scenarios, respectively.

(1)
maximum daily value
averaged over a 6-h window.

Pal, J S, Elfatih, A B E (2015). Future

temperature in southwest Asia
projected to
exceed a threshold for human
adaptability. Nature Climate Change,
DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE2833
WHY ?

Carbon dioxide
concentration in the air
was reasonably stable
before industrialisation.

Since 1700, it has started

increasing. The chart is
based on measurements
from Cape Grim and on air
samples collected from
Antarctic ice at Law Dome.

http://www.csiro.au/greenhouse-gases/
 This is why we need new and clean energy sources.

I will address only two: Geothermal and Solar Thermal.

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The Earth is Hot
Our drilling activities are
limited to the top 5 km

Solid
(5000-6000 oC)

The temperature increases as we

go deeper into the crust. The
average rate of increase is about
25 oC/km over the first 100 km.

One would need a hot source of at least 150 oC for economic electricity
generation using present technology. To get down to that depth, on
average, one needs to drill 5 kilometers.
34
 This is how hot the earth is

italy-sicily-stromboli-volcano-eruption.jpg
http://www.zmescience.com/other/science-abc/types-of-volcano/
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Krafla Geothermal Plant in
Iceland

36
Nesjavellir Geothermal Power
Plant in Iceland

37
Mutnovsk, Kamchatka, Russia

38
Old and New Plants, Tuscany

39
Wairakei, New Zealand

40
Mindanao, Philippines

41
North-East Africa

Ilegedi Bubbling Pool in Eritrea

Fumarole (steam vent) in Eritrea

42
Existing Geothermal Sites

California, USA
Tuscany, Italy
New Zealand
Japan
Iceland What is common
Kamchatcka, Russia about these locations?
Phillippines
Eritrea

43
World Volcanic Geothermal Resources

44
Enough geothermal energy to provide for the nation for the next 6000 years

Temperatures at 5 km

Cost projections
2030
5000 MWe by
22,000 EJ
8-10 /kWh
$4-6m/MW
200 oC
45
A geothermal energy boom is
expected once the energy economics
change with pricing of carbon
emissions
This is a
2007 slide.
This was
what I
predicted at
that time.

46
 47
Geodynamics, Innamincka, Central Australia

http://www.enviroinfo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Geothermal-SA.jpg
February 2014

H Gurgenci
(h.gurgenci@uq.edu.au)
 All Power from the Sun ?
This figure shows how
large an area we need
to meet the entire
electricity demand for
Europe and for the
world.

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 Global Horizontal Irradiation Map
http://solargis.info/doc/_pics/freemaps/1000px/ghi/SolarGIS-Solar-map-China-Mainlands-en.png

This is the
total area we
need to
generate all
of the present
Australian
electricity
demand.

Total electricity generation = 250000 GWh/y

DNI in Roma = 2500 kWh/m2/y
Overall solar conversion efficiency = 25 %
Solar electricity generation per m2= 625 kWh
Mirrors required for Australia = 400 km2

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 The World Solar Resource ( GHI )
http://solargis.info/doc/_pics/freemaps/1000px/ghi/SolarGIS-Solar-map-World-map-en.png

GHI is relevant
to PV

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 The World Solar Resource ( DNI )
http://solargis.info/doc/_pics/freemaps/1000px/dni/SolarGIS-Solar-map-DNI-World-map-en.png

DNI is relevant to
Solar Thermal

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 Global Horizontal Irradiation

Diffuse Horizontal
Irradiation DHI

GHI is all solar incidence falling on the horizontal

collector. Part of it direct from the sun, part of it diffuse.
Solar collecting surface
Horizontal plate catches only PART of the DNI.
(horizontal)
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 Direct Normal Incidence

Mirrors can only

reflect the direct
radiation

Solar concentrating
mirror (tracking the sun)
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What Is Concentrating Solar Thermal?
 Different uses for GHI and DNI
Photovoltaic systems DNI

are designed using GHI Diffuse Tilt Angle

(usually adjusted for the

panel tilt angle)

Concentrating Solar
Thermal systems are
designed using DNI

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 PV ARRAYS at THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND

March 2014 | Hal

Gurgenci
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HOLD ON A SECOND !

Hold on a second? What do we do when the

sun goes out?

We use storage. Store

during the day, live off the
store at night.
Why does IEA predict CST to grow when
PV is cheap and is getting cheaper ?

350
Generated using data in Figures 4.45 and 4.26 of Australian Energy
Technology Assessment bree.gov.au (2012)
300

250

200

$/MWh
CST

150

100
PV

50

0
2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050 2055 2060
Years
The question !

Why does IEA predict CST to grow when PV

is cheap and is getting cheaper ?

The PV is intermittent.
The CST is not.
UQ PV ARRAY ON A GOOD DAY
 intermittent means no
electricity when there is
no sun !

the next day

HOLD ON A SECOND !

Hold on a second? If PV is intermittent, why is

CST not? They both rely on the sun. When
there is no sun, both will have to stop.

You beat intermittency if

you can store energy. PV
storage is expensive.
CST is not.
Storing electricity is expensive
Teslas PowerPACK for utilities
unveiled in May 2015 has the
price tag $250/kWh.

Cost of storing heat:

$25/kWhth

$50/kWhe
Storing heat is cheap
PV or Solar Thermal ? We need both.

+
CST will store heat when there is
PV will produce electricity
sun and produce electricity when
when there is sun.
there is NO sun.
 PRESENT CST
TECHNOLOGY IS
NOT SUITABLE FOR
THIS SCENARIO !
Concentrating Solar Thermal
 CST
PLANTS
TODAY ARE
NOT SMALL

The PV + CST Hybrid Plants need small CST (1-30 MW).

The present CST technology is based on steam power.

Steam power cannot be made small.

We need new technology.

 The comparative
advantages of
supercritical CO2 over
steam
Why Supercritical CO2?
Supercritical CO2 cycles are attractive for three
fundamental reasons:
They are more efficient than steam cycle
They are more compact
They will be cheaper
More Efficient than steam
Dostal, V., A Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Cycle for Next Generation Nuclear Reactors. 2004, MIT
60
He Brayton
Supercritical steam
Superheated steam
55 sCO2

50 sCO2 is better than steam at T>560oC

45
Efficiency, %

40

35

30 This chart shows thermodynamic

efficiencies of different cycle
options. As you can see,
supercritical CO2 cycle becomes
25 better than supercritical steam at
temperatures above 550 oC and it
gets even better at higher
temperatures.
20
400 500 600 700 800 900

Temperature, oC
More COMPACT than steam

Dostal, V., A Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Cycle for Next Generation Nuclear Reactors. 2004, MIT
 STEAM POWER is COMPLEX
This is the process sheet for a typical molten salt solar receiver with a steam power plant.
Many turbine stages and many reheats are required to maintain the cycle efficiency.
the need for reheat

Several reheats are needed to

maximise the cycle efficiency in a
steam power plant. All of this
increases the complexity of the
power plant. This is in addition to
the steam turbines being bulkier
than the supercritical CO2 turbines.

RESULT: Steam power plants are

not viable at sizes smaller than 50
megawatts. Supercritical CO2
powerplants can be built as small
as 1-Mwe, possibly smaller.
Efficiency of small plants

Supercritical CO2
makes it possible to
build small power
plants with small
fields. This may
mean efficiency gains
of around 5%.

M J Wagner, MSc Thesis, Simulation and Predictive Performance Modeling of Utility-Scale Central Receiver System Power Plants, 2008 page 32, Figure 9
IVANPAH

~ 1000 m

The closest = 150 m 2% loss on clear days; 5% loss on hazy days

The far end = 1000 m 10% loss on clear days; 25% loss on hazy days
 CHEAPER ELECTRICITY

Solar Tower
with a
Supercritical
CO2 Power
Block

Figure 5.11, US Department of Energy, Sunshot Vision Study, 2012

SCO2 Advantage Summary

At 700oC, supercritical CO2 7% more efficient than supercritical steam. It

will get much better at higher temperatures.
A supercritical CO2 plant can be small (1 to 30 MWe), therefore it will enjoy
higher solar collection efficiencies due to smaller solar fields (5%)
A supercritical CO2 plant will be simpler and therefore will cost less
The end result will be cheaper electricity market advantage for sCO2
If available will achieve 100% market share very quickly.

If this is so good, why are they Until recently, there was not
still using steam? much interest in CST. Large
turbine manufacturers did not
want to invest in sCO2 because
the market was small.
 What is stopping
us ?
Let us explore the problem and identify the
technical challenges
CST PLANT using a sCO2 Cycle

REC
Simple supercritical CO2 cycle

QH
The simplest supercritical
CO2 plant would have
HTR one heater to heat CO2,
an expander to generate
power, a cooling tower to
COM

EXP
G reject heat, and a
compressor to compress
the cold CO2.

CT Unfortunately, this would

be a very inefficient plant.

COM: Compressor QC
HTR: Heater
We need a recuperator.
EXP: Expander
CT: Cooling Tower
QH: Heat input
QC: Heat rejection
need a recuperator because

600
C
W Only a small part of the heat
500 input is converted into
power during the expansion
D C-D. The rest of it is
rejected.
400

Therefore, the simple

QH configuration is not suitable
T, oC

300 for power generation.

Therefore, the minimum
configuration is where a
recuperator transfers some
200
QL of the heat from the hot CO2
to the cold CO2.

100 B
A
0
800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 2200 2400 2600 2800
Entropy, J/kg-K
What does a recuperator do?
600

With a recuperator, the C

bulk of the heat input
before the turbine inlet W
500 comes from the CO2 QH
stream still hot after the
turbine exit. This is D
shown in the chart. The
400 shaded area is the
recuperator heat transfer.
Both the heat input, QH,
and the heat dump, QL,
T, oC

300 are reduced significantly.

The cycle efficiency is
doubled when a
recuperator is used. QL
200

B
100

QR
0
A
800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 2200 2400 2600 2800
Entropy, J/kg-K
RECUPERATED CYCLE
The recuperator design is of critical importance.
It should have low pressure drop and high heat transfer
coefficient. Heatric Printed Circuit Heat Exchangers
offer the only proven option at the moment.

https://mercureaace2013.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/w1
0_aib_replacing-printed-circuit-heat-exchanger/
Increased efficiency with increasing
complexity

4 3

6 R 5 R

9 0
8
2
Using two compressors G E C C

and two recuperators

increase the efficiency a
bit more and this might
justify the extra cost. 7
1
what is available already?

Solar Mirrors

Solar Tower and the Receiver

Thermal Storage

Compressor

Recuperator

Cooling Tower

Turbine

Generator
 Component options
Turbine Missing technology. No Type How hard can it be to
commercial product yet. Axial for utility-scale build a supercritical
Radial for small systems CO2 turbine?
Compact size
High RPM higher power density than steam
Low pressure ratio fewer stages than steam

Compressor Commercial products exist Available for pipeline CO2 transport and enhanced oil
recovery (EOR) applications.
Recuperator Commercial products exist Printed Circuit Heat Exchangers used in gas-to-gas heat
transfer in process industries. sCO2 is denser than most
gases smaller exchanger for the same heat transfer duty
compared to process gases

Heater/Thermal Several options exist. High pressure CO2 in standard tubes. The type of thermal
Storage energy storage dictates what is outside.

Cooling Tower Commercial products exist Hybrid cooling is preferred (commercial air cooling enhanced
using occasional evaporative cooling)
Near the Critical point

SC Steam SC CO2
Turbine Inlet
Temperature, oC 560 560
Pressure, kPa 28000 20000
Density, kg/m3 88 123
Cooling Tower
Temperature, oC 30 98 30
Pressure, kPa 4 9000
Density, kg/m3 0.03 995 166 746
High risk high reward

THOSE
WHO
DARE
WIN !
 2013 Total Electricity Production in China (ex. Hong Kong) = 5400 TWh

FUture SOLAR THERMAL Growth

Source: Figure 10, International Energy Agency, Technology Map Solar Thermal, 2014 Edition
MARKET Growth
1200
CST Unit Cost = $7m/MWe The plot generated using the data on the
previous slide and a unit cost of $7m/MWe.
Breakdown from Figure 4.2, IRENA, CSP Cost Analysis, 2012

1000

800
Total GWe and $b/year

600
Global installed CST capacity, GWe

400

200

Annual investment, $b

0
2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050
Years
sCO2 turbine/compressor market
(assuming 100% CST market penetration)
250

sCO2 turbine/compressor spending, $ billions

200

150

100

50

0
2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050
Years
SUPERCRITICAL CO2
SYSTEM AND
TURBINE
DEVELOPMENT AT
THE UNIVERSITY
OF QUEENSLAND
Turbine design challenges

The challenges are

Aerodynamic design for
the rotor and the nozzles
Mechanical design of
the turbine
Bearings
Seals
Generator
AERODYNAMIC DESIGN

Turbine Design Process

1. Meanline Design
2D geometry e.g.Inlet/Outlet radius
Performance estimation e.g. power and efficiency

2. CFD Simulation
3D geometry e.g. thickness and angle distribution of the curved rotor blade
Performance estimation e.g. power, efficiency and chocking

PhD Student : Mostafa Odabaee

 Mechanical Analysis
30mm rotor for a
The key characteristics of sCO2 turbine can include; 500-kWe turbine
High density gradient,
High pressure working fluid and,
Small size of turbine.
Impeller blades in sCO2 radial inflow turbines are exposed to;
High thermal loads and centrifugal forces and,
This is one of the
Additional dynamic stresses occur by the aerodynamic excitation.
early designs being
considered.
FE analysis;
Deformation and stress can be calculated using pressure and temperature loads from CFD
Vibration analysis; November 2014 December 2014
One-way coupling FSI is chosen based on following procedure;
1. The unsteady pressure field on the entire rotor surface are extracted using transient CFD.
2. A Fourier decomposition is conducted for the unsteady pressure field at any location of the CFD grid.
3. The harmonic forced response then is computed, applying the pressure forces from CFD.

PhD Student : Mohsen Modirshaneschi

 SEALS
i. no current commercial dry gas seal is available for operating under S-CO2 conditions therefore
a functional new design operating under S-CO2 condition is needed detail studies is needed in
order to properly design a S-CO2 .
ii. old empirical methods based on incompressible fluid or ideal gas are not working for real gas S-CO2
properties abrupt changes in a non-linear fluid properties could introduce some interesting
flow behaviour such as sonic effect etc. if not properly overcome these issue might not work.

GROOVE

DIRECTION Grooves
OF ROTATION

PhD Student : Mohd Fairuz Zakariya

 Bearings

Background
Oil-free system[1]
Increase tolerance with respect to
deformations of rotor/stator
Better tolerances to manufacturing
variation
Better rotor dynamics

Research Methodology
Code development
Fluid domain simulations: Eilmer
Conjugate heat transfer (CHT) analysis: Eilmer & OpenFOAM
Structural deformation: written in Python
Moving grid development in CFD code: Eilmer
A full 3D code: Eilmer & OpenFOAM & Python
Validation with experiments

PhD Student : Qin Kan

UQ sCO2 Turbine test facility
TEST LOOP diagram
 uq turbine prototype

This is a refrigerant turbine. It was easier to design and build but we re hoping to validate
our design software by testing this prototype. When validated, the same software can be
used to design a supercritical CO2 turbine. We are hoping to design and test our first
supercritical CO2 turbine in 2016.

The rotor

The test set-up

TEST SET-up Cut-away drawing
 UQ
PROJECTS

Exists

Exists

Proposed
C B