Design and operation of a geopressurized-geothermal hybrid cycle power plant

Geopressured-geothermal resources can contribute significantly to the national electricity supply once technical and economic obstacles are overcome. Power plant performance under the harsh conditions of a geopressured resource was unproven, so a demonstration power plant was built and operated on the Pleasant Bayou geopressured resource in Texas. This one megawatt facility provided valuable data over a range of operating conditions. This power plant was a first-of-a-kind demonstration of the hybrid cycle concept. A hybrid cycle was used to take advantage of the fact that geopressured resources contain energy in more than one form -- hot water and natural gas. Studies have shown that hybrid cycles can yield thirty percent more power than stand-alone geothermal and fossil fuel power plants operating on the same resource. In the hybrid cycle at Pleasant Bayou, gas was burned in engines to generate electricity directly. Exhaust heat from the engines was then combined with heat from the brine to generate additional electricity in a binary cycle. Heat from the gas engine was available at high temperature, thus improving the efficiency of the binary portion of the hybrid cycle. Design power output was achieved, and 3445 MWh of power were sold to the local utility overmore » the course of the test. Plant availability was 97.5% and the capacity factor was over 80% for the extended run at maximum power production. The hybrid cycle power plant demonstrated that there are no technical obstacles to electricity generation at Pleasant Bayou. 14 refs., 38 figs., 16 tabs.« less