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This study is concerned with optimizing the daily operation of a solar power plant equipped with thermal energy storage system (TES). The modeling is performed by solving a set of non-linear governing equations and is verified through comparison with the literature. "Maximum production period" and "maximum revenue" constitute the objectives of the optimization study which are first considered individually (as two single-objective problems) and are then considered simultaneously (as a multi-objective problem). Genetic Algorithm (GA) is employed as the optimization tool. The results of the first objective (maximum production period) shows 7 hours increase in the daily production time as a result of employing the TES system. This occurred through saving energy during the times of high solar radiation and using the stored energy for electricity generation during the times of low or zero solar radiation. The results of the second objective (maximum revenue) indicate 13.5% increase in the produced profit as a result of employing the TES system. This improvement was resulted from saving energy during the times of low electricity price and using the stored energy for maximum electricity generation during the times of high electricity price. Finally, in the multi-objective study, 5 hours increase in the production period and 8.1% increase in the revenue were simultaneously obtained as a result of a proper tradeoff between the two objectives.

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Wet cooling towers have a high cooling capacity. However, owing to consumption of large water quantities in wet cooling towers, using them in arid regions facing water resource crisis might cause operational problems. In this research, changing the wet cooling tower of unit 5 of Isfahan Islamabad power plant into a hybrid cooling tower, using parallel path wet/dry configuration is studied. The hybrid cooling tower with the recommended configuration causes minimal changes in the other power plant facilities and has a low construction cost. Two different airflow control systems are investigated for the wet and hybrid cooling towers. In the first system, the amount of airflow rate in the cooling tower is adjusted by means of switching tower ID fans on or off. In the second system, an optimum airflow control mechanism with high-tech fans is devised. The results reveal that the optimum airflow control system is more suitable than the other system, due to less water consumption, preventing the sudden fluctuations of airflow and consequently water consumption rates and less fan power consumption. Experimental data and results obtained by the HTFS software are used for validating the simulated results of the wet cooling tower and air-cooled heat exchangers, respectively. The results demonstrate that the annual amount of water conservation due to changing the wet cooling tower into hybrid tower is approximately 343830 and 348718 cubic meters for fan switching and optimum airflow control systems, respectively.

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The use of new energies, including geothermal energy, is rapidly devoloping in the world. In Iran, the Sabalan area has a great potential for generating energy from geothermal energy sources. In this paper, a new power generation combined cycle (flash combined cycle with supercritical carbon dioxide and organic Rankine cycle) is proposed with respect to two wells with different temperatures and pressures for Sabalan geothermal sources. For the organic Rankine cycle, four fluids are considered appropriately and then proposed combination cycle is investigated by energy and exergy analysis. In this study, a new method proposed for the determination of Pinch point for carbon dioxide heat exchangers. In the end the proposed cycle has been optimized relative to seprators pressure, the second evaporator temperature and the carbon dioxide cycle pressure ratio. The results show that the n-butane agent has been selected as the most suitable fluid for the Rankine cycle. For the optimal condition, the net power of the proposed cycle is 19934 kW, the cycle efficiency will be 17.05% and the exergy efficiency will be65.38 %.The results of exergy analysis show that the low pressure turbine in geothermal have the highest value of exergy destruction. The results show that net power output, energy and exergy efficiencies of the proposed cycle in this paper is 15.29 %, 17.06% and 18.35% higher than the corresponding values obtained for the previously proposed system.

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In this research, the effect of using two solar fields in a solar thermal power plant was evaluated. The average price of natural gas in the last decade was 3.5 dollar/MMBTU. Due to the complexities of the solar power plant, two methods were introduced to optimize the area of the solar fields. Then, for further evaluation of the solar power plant with two distinct solar fields, the plant was examined for two natural gas prices of 3.5 and 9 dollar/MMBTU. The results of the study show that the use of two separate solar fields to produce high pressure steam turbines and low pressure over the use of a solar field reduces the cost of generating electricity. Although each solar field must produce different energy quantities, and the area of each of the fields is different, the size of the field coefficient of the field was the same for both solar fields.

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In the present study, a new combined cycle (including a two-step flash evaporation, the Kalina cycle, and a proton-exchange membrane) for simultaneous power and hydrogen generation from Sabalan geothermal wells has been proposed and analyzed from the viewpoints of energy and exergy. The effects of important parameters including separators pressure of flash evaporation, the minimum temperature difference in the pinch point, Kalian higher pressure, superheated geothermal fluid, the ratio of consumed power for hydrogen production and dead state temperature on the amount of produced hydrogen, the net generating power, thermal and exergy efficiencies of the proposed combined cycle have been studied. The results show that for the investigated case in the proposed combined cycle, the amount of the produced hydrogen, net generating power and energy, and exergy efficiency were 1536kg/hr, 12.83MV, 11.39% and 43.64%, respectively. Increasing the pressure of the separators was not effective in increasing hydrogen production, while with increasing the first separator pressure, as well as, the second separator pressure to the optimum pressure, the thermal and exergy efficiency increase. With increasing the temperature of the proton membrane electrolyzer, the produced hydrogen discharge increases and while maintaining cycle net output power, thermal and exergy efficiencies increase. Also, at the optimum point for high-pressure Kalina, the maximum amount of hydrogen production is obtained. The highest amount of exergy degradation was obtained for the protonated membrane electrolyzer, evaporator and condenser 2, respectively.