Both intermittent renewable energy (IRE) and nuclear fission energy can provide carbon-free electric power to the grid. The electric power generation from the intermittent renewable energy (IRE) sources such as the wind and solar are strongly dependent on the climatic conditions, geographical location and large land footprint. While, nuclear plants can provide consistent and clean power supply with small land footprint. Due to the strong complementarity between the IRE and nuclear, it is attractive to interconnect them to build nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (NRHESs) which are defined as the integrated facilities comprised of nuclear reactors, renewable energy generation and industrial processes. The flexibility of a NRHES for grid balance can be provided by actively adjusting the electric power output of nuclear cogeneration plants (NCPs). To balance the intermittent renewable energy (IRE), it is necessary for nuclear power plants (NPPs) to operate flexibly. The flexibility can be given by cogeneration, where the main steam flow are used to drive several thermal loads such as the turbine and seawater desalination process. The electric power of a nuclear cogeneration plant (NCP) can be regulated through adjusting the excess steam flow to the cogeneration processes. Due to the fluctuation of IRE generation, the distribution of main steam to different thermal loads in a NCP varies with net demand frequently, which in turn results in a floating feedwater temperature, and further forms a disturbance to the operation of nuclear reactor. To mitigate the fluctuation of process variables caused by balancing IRE generation, it is necessary to study the coordinated control of flexible nuclear cogeneration plants. In this paper, the scheme of a NCP form by a 200MW~th~ nuclear heating reactor NHR-200II based nuclear steam supply system (NSSS) driving a turbine and a seawater desalination process is first introduced. To balance the IRE generation, a plant coordinated control strategy is newly proposed. The feasibility of this control is verified through numerical simulation, which shows that this NCP can be adopted for balancing IRE.


Coordinated Control Scheme Design of a Nuclear Heating Reactor Cogenertion Plant for Balancing Renewables

Division / Sponsors: 
Power Division & Nuclear Engineering Division (NED)

Power Conference
Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/POWER/POWER2020/volume/83747

International Conference on Nuclear Engineering
Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ICONE/ICONE2020/volume/83761

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