Efficiency enhancement of the ocean thermal energy conversion system with a vapor–vapor ejector

Abstract

In this article, 20 kW ocean thermal energy conversion with a vapor–vapor ejector is newly proposed. As a vapor–vapor ejector is installed in the system, the pressure difference between the turbine inlet and outlet increases. Therefore, the amount of the working fluid required for the total turbine work of 20 kW is less than when no vapor–vapor ejector is installed. Therefore, installing a vapor–vapor ejector in the system decreases the evaporation capacity and the pump work. The performance analysis considered the outlet pressure of the high-stage turbine, the mass flow ratio of the working fluid at the outlet of a separator just after the high-stage turbine, and the nozzle diameters of the vapor–vapor ejector. As the outlet pressure of high-stage turbine becomes lower, the turbine gross power of high-stage turbine and system efficiency increase although lower outlet pressure of high-stage turbine results in lower ejector performance. Similarly, in terms of mass flow ratio, the highest system efficiency was shown at mass flow ratio of 0.4 at the outlet of a separator just after the high-stage turbine. On the other hand, the performance of the ejector at mass flow ratio of 0.5 at the outlet of a separator was largest. When the nozzle diameters of the vapor–vapor ejector are properly designed, the vapor–vapor ejector shows the highest performance. After the optimization of the operation parameters, system efficiency of the proposed ocean thermal energy conversion power cycle was 2.47%, relatively 15% higher than that of the basic ocean thermal energy conversion power cycle (2.2%).