The energy-saving benefit and economic evaluation analysis of cooling tower with flue gas injection

The cooling tower is a significant device of the circular cooling water system in thermal power plants, whose cooling performance will directly affect the operation stability of steam-turbine unit and the efficiency of cold-end system. As the construction and development of thermal power plants, especially nuclear power plants and solar power plants, the requirement for the construction cost of cooling tower and its performance is increasing. In recent years, the cooling tower with flue gas injection has attracted wide concerns for its advantage of low costs. However, the study on the energy-saving benefit and economic evaluation analysis of large cooling tower lags behind the demand of actual engineering design and construction. Based on the analysis of the energy-saving benefit and economic evaluation models of the conventional cooling tower and the discussion of their defects, a multi-objective optimization mathematical model for energy-saving benefit and economic evaluation analysis suitable for natural draft cooling tower with flue gas injection was built, and is proved to be practical by means of calculation and analysis of engineering project as the example. The results indicate that cooling tower with flue gas injection is not only economic but also has the distinct energy-saving benefit, and is worthy of promoting.