Power Cycle Assessment of Nuclear Systems, Providing Energy Storage for Low Carbon Grids Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • The intermittency of renewable power generation systems on the low carbon electric grid can be alleviated by using nuclear systems as quasi-storage systems. Nuclear air-Brayton systems can produce and store hydrogen when electric generation is abundant and then burn the hydrogen by co-firing when generation is limited. The rated output of a nuclear plant can be significantly augmented by co-firing. The incremental efficiency of hydrogen to electricity can far exceed that of hydrogen in a standalone gas turbine. Herein, we simulate and evaluate this idea on a 50MW small modular liquid metal/molten salt reactor. Considerable power increases are predicted for nuclear air-Brayton systems by co-firing with hydrogen before the power turbine.

published proceedings

  • JOURNAL OF NUCLEAR ENGINEERING AND RADIATION SCIENCE

author list (cited authors)

  • Fathi, N., McDaniel, P., Forsberg, C., & de Oliveira, C.

citation count

  • 4

complete list of authors

  • Fathi, Nima||McDaniel, Patrick||Forsberg, Charles||de Oliveira, Cassiano

publication date

  • April 2018