Thermo-Economic Performance of a Cogeneration Medium–Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Plant in Canada

Abstract

Hitachi-GE developed a 300 MWel class modular simplified and medium small reactor (DMS) concept, and the DMS was originally designed for generating electricity only. In this study, the feasibility of a cogeneration DMS plant which supplies both electricity and heat is under investigation. The thermal performance of the DMS plant without or with low-, medium-, or high-temperature thermal utilization (TU) applications is evaluated by numerical simulations. The results show that the electricity generated reduces as the heating requirement of TU application becomes higher. Furthermore, the economic performance of the cogeneration DMS plant is compared with another two integrated systems: (i) DMS plus electric boilers and (ii) DMS plus natural gas boilers, for those three TU applications in Canada. The results illustrate that the DMS plus natural gas boilers system are most economic if there is no carbon tax, but with high-CO2 emissions (up to 180 kton per year). The cogeneration plant performs best as the carbon tax increases up to $40/ton. The cogeneration DMS plant is a promising scheme to supply both electricity and heat simultaneously in the economic-environmental point of view.