Thermodynamic analysis of a multi small modular reactor-driven clean electricity-steam cogeneration system with recently-deployed potential for petrochemical industry decarbonization

Abstract

Small Modular Reactor (SMR) is a promising multi-purpose energy supply technology that can meet various energy needs in the ’difficult to reduce carbon’ petrochemical industry. Although there have been some studies on SMR-driven nuclear cogeneration systems, most of them have focused on a specific type of reactor, and research on nuclear cogeneration systems using multi different SMRs has seldom been reported. To fill this research gap, this paper proposes a flexibly-arranged nuclear cogeneration system driven by two types of SMR, which is coupled with a typical petrochemical park for electricity-steam combined supply. Two different operation schemes are developed for the system, and the system is modeled from both energy and exergy perspectives. The results indicate that the proposed multi SMR-driven nuclear cogeneration system has the potential to be deployed in the near future for petrochemical industry decarbonization. At rated conditions, the system achieves global energy and exergy efficiencies of approximately 73.8% and 64.4%, respectively, with main energy losses occurring in the heat exchange network, steam generators, main heat exchanger, and condenser. Finally, the case analysis illustrates that the global energy efficiency of the system significantly increases with the increase of the steam demand of petrochemical park, while the global exergy efficiency of the system slightly decreases. These findings suggest the feasibility of deploying hybrid SMR-based systems to meet multi-energy demands while advancing industrial decarbonization.