📋 Case Study

Air-Cooled Condenser Retrofit for 600 MW Coal Power Plant

Water scarcity forcing shift to dry cooling; risk of summer turbine backpressure rise

🏗️ Project Overview

Retrofit of legacy water-cooled condenser at Midwest US plant

🎯 Challenge

Water scarcity forcing shift to dry cooling; risk of summer turbine backpressure rise

🔧 Design Approach

Optimized finned-tube array with variable-speed fans and ambient temperature-based control logic

📐 Key Calculations

Fan Power vs. ΔT

P ∝ ΔT^1.8 × m_dot_air

Result: 12.4 kW per module

Drives O&M cost and grid stability

LMTD Penalty

LMTD = (ΔT1 − ΔT2)/ln(ΔT1/ΔT2)

Result: 17.2 K (vs. 28.9 K water-cooled)

Dictates required heat transfer area increase

📊 Results

Zero water withdrawal, <2% summer efficiency penalty, ROI in 4.7 years

💡 Lessons Learned

• •Ambient temperature binning is critical for fan staging
• •Fin fouling monitoring must be integrated into SCADA

✅ Key Takeaways

• 1Ambient temperature binning is critical for fan staging
• 2Fin fouling monitoring must be integrated into SCADA