Inverted Brayton Cycle Employment for Low Temperature Cogenerative Applications

Abstract

The employment of cogeneration plants for thermal and electric power production is constantly increasing especially for low power requirements. In most cases, to match these low power needs, the cogeneration plant is built up with diesel or gasoline engine or with gas turbine units. In this paper, the performance, in terms of the most utilized cogenerative indexes, of an Inverted Brayton Cycle working with the gas exhausted by the open power plant have been evaluated. Subsequently, the analysis of a cogenerative gas turbine equipped with IBC was carried out and the benefits numerically calculated. It resulted that the IBC employment may increase of about 5 percentage points the plant electric efficiency, making this solution particularly attractive for cogenerative applications.