Development of a gas hydrate power generation system for cold district using low temperature heat emission

Abstract

Since the electricity demand and the thermal demand in the cold district are large compared to the warm region, so emission of greenhouse gases by mass consumption of fossil fuels becomes a problem. For this reason, it is necessary to construct an energy system based on renewable energy. This research proposes a power generation system that utilizes unique state change characteristics by thermal cycle of carbon dioxide hydrate. The energy necessary for operating the proposed system is only heat, outside air temperature (low temperature heat source) is used in cold areas in winter, low temperature heat emission (high temperature heat source) of buildings and factories is used. In the trial system, electricity is obtained from the pressure difference during the phase change of CO2gas hydrate by the scroll type expander. In this paper, it is expected that the power generation efficiency reaches 11.8% by appropriately using the heat exchanger which is the reaction vessel of the prototype system.