IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v253y2019ic58.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A data-driven approach to investigate the impact of air temperature on the efficiencies of coal and natural gas generators

Author

Listed:
  • Meng, Measrainsey
  • Sanders, Kelly T.

Abstract

The efficiency of a thermoelectric generator is dependent on a number of operational and climatic variables, including ambient air temperature. To date, there has not been a data-driven analysis of the impacts of climate variability on electricity generator performance that includes a statistically representative set of generators. This study develops regression models to estimate changes in the efficiencies of over one thousand coal and natural gas generators as a function of ambient air temperature and operational variables, across different fuel types, prime movers, cooling systems, and climate zones during the years ranging from 2008 to 2017. The efficiencies of generators with dry cooling, particularly those in hot and dry climates, demonstrated the greatest sensitivity to increases in ambient temperature. Results for generators utilizing wet cooling systems were largely inconclusive, most likely because other factors, such as cooling water temperature, are better predictors of efficiency. Natural gas combustion generator efficiencies exhibit large sensitivities to rises in air temperature in theoretical models but had a counterintuitive trend in our findings, where losses were relatively small in the hottest and driest climates. This result is likely due to the fact that natural gas combustion generators in hot and arid regions often utilize inlet air cooling technologies to reduce the temperature of ambient air before it enters the compressor, thereby mitigating efficiency losses. The analytical framework developed offers generalized methods for cleaning, processing, and merging federally available electricity generation and climate datasets to increase their value in future studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Meng, Measrainsey & Sanders, Kelly T., 2019. "A data-driven approach to investigate the impact of air temperature on the efficiencies of coal and natural gas generators," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 253(C), pages 1-1.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:253:y:2019:i:c:58
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.113486
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261919311602
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.113486?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arrieta, Felipe R. Ponce & Lora, Electo E. Silva, 2005. "Influence of ambient temperature on combined-cycle power-plant performance," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 261-272, March.
    2. Li, Francis G.N. & Bataille, Chris & Pye, Steve & O'Sullivan, Aidan, 2019. "Prospects for energy economy modelling with big data: Hype, eliminating blind spots, or revolutionising the state of the art?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(C), pages 991-1002.
    3. González-Díaz, Abigail & Alcaráz-Calderón, Agustín M. & González-Díaz, Maria Ortencia & Méndez-Aranda, Ángel & Lucquiaud, Mathieu & González-Santaló, Jose Miguel, 2017. "Effect of the ambient conditions on gas turbine combined cycle power plants with post-combustion CO2 capture," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 221-233.
    4. Michelle T. H. van Vliet & David Wiberg & Sylvain Leduc & Keywan Riahi, 2016. "Power-generation system vulnerability and adaptation to changes in climate and water resources," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 6(4), pages 375-380, April.
    5. Lu Liu & Mohamad Hejazi & Hongyi Li & Barton Forman & Xiao Zhang, 2017. "Vulnerability of US thermoelectric power generation to climate change when incorporating state-level environmental regulations," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 2(8), pages 1-5, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nguyen, Hieu T. & Felder, Frank A., 2020. "Generation expansion planning with renewable energy credit markets: A bilevel programming approach," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 276(C).
    2. Aviva Loew & Paulina Jaramillo & Haibo Zhai & Rahim Ali & Bart Nijssen & Yifan Cheng & Kelly Klima, 2020. "Fossil fuel–fired power plant operations under a changing climate," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 163(1), pages 619-632, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chen, Hao & Liu, Simin & Liu, Qiufeng & Shi, Xueli & Wei, Wendong & Han, Rong & Küfeoğlu, Sinan, 2021. "Estimating the impacts of climate change on electricity supply infrastructure: A case study of China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    2. Voisin, Nathalie & Dyreson, Ana & Fu, Tao & O'Connell, Matt & Turner, Sean W.D. & Zhou, Tian & Macknick, Jordan, 2020. "Impact of climate change on water availability and its propagation through the Western U.S. power grid," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 276(C).
    3. Zhang, Yuanzhe & Liu, Pei & Li, Zheng, 2023. "Gas turbine off-design behavior modelling and operation windows analysis under different ambient conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 262(PA).
    4. Daniel C. Steinberg & Bryan K. Mignone & Jordan Macknick & Yinong Sun & Kelly Eurek & Andrew Badger & Ben Livneh & Kristen Averyt, 2020. "Decomposing supply-side and demand-side impacts of climate change on the US electricity system through 2050," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 158(2), pages 125-139, January.
    5. Pengbang Wei & Yufang Peng & Weidong Chen, 2022. "Climate change adaptation mechanisms and strategies of coal-fired power plants," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 27(8), pages 1-22, December.
    6. Aviva Loew & Paulina Jaramillo & Haibo Zhai & Rahim Ali & Bart Nijssen & Yifan Cheng & Kelly Klima, 2020. "Fossil fuel–fired power plant operations under a changing climate," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 163(1), pages 619-632, November.
    7. Jin, Yi & Scherer, Laura & Sutanudjaja, Edwin H. & Tukker, Arnold & Behrens, Paul, 2022. "Climate change and CCS increase the water vulnerability of China's thermoelectric power fleet," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    8. Craig, Michael T. & Cohen, Stuart & Macknick, Jordan & Draxl, Caroline & Guerra, Omar J. & Sengupta, Manajit & Haupt, Sue Ellen & Hodge, Bri-Mathias & Brancucci, Carlo, 2018. "A review of the potential impacts of climate change on bulk power system planning and operations in the United States," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 255-267.
    9. Abdin, I.F. & Fang, Y.-P. & Zio, E., 2019. "A modeling and optimization framework for power systems design with operational flexibility and resilience against extreme heat waves and drought events," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 706-719.
    10. Kahsar, Rudy, 2020. "The potential for brackish water use in thermoelectric power generation in the American southwest," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    11. Senni, Chiara Colesanti & von Jagow, Adrian, 2023. "Water risks for hydroelectricity generation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119256, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Pavičević, Matija & De Felice, Matteo & Busch, Sebastian & Hidalgo González, Ignacio & Quoilin, Sylvain, 2021. "Water-energy nexus in African power pools – The Dispa-SET Africa model," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    13. Ayoub, Ali & Gjorgiev, Blaže & Sansavini, Giovanni, 2018. "Cooling towers performance in a changing climate: Techno-economic modeling and design optimization," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 1133-1143.
    14. Zhou, Yuanchun & Ma, Mengdie & Gao, Peiqi & Xu, Qiming & Bi, Jun & Naren, Tuya, 2019. "Managing water resources from the energy - water nexus perspective under a changing climate: A case study of Jiangsu province, China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 380-390.
    15. Pengcheng Qin & Hongmei Xu & Min Liu & Lüliu Liu & Chan Xiao & Iman Mallakpour & Matin Rahnamay Naeini & Kuolin Hsu & Soroosh Sorooshian, 2022. "Projected impacts of climate change on major dams in the Upper Yangtze River Basin," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 1-24, January.
    16. SarahM. Jordaan & Afreen Siddiqi & William Kakenmaster & AliceC. Hill, 2019. "The Climate Vulnerabilities of Global Nuclear Power," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 19(4), pages 3-13, November.
    17. Vitaly Sergeev & Irina Anikina & Konstantin Kalmykov, 2021. "Using Heat Pumps to Improve the Efficiency of Combined-Cycle Gas Turbines," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-26, May.
    18. Aleksejs Prozuments & Arturs Brahmanis & Armands Mucenieks & Vladislavs Jacnevs & Deniss Zajecs, 2022. "Preliminary Study of Various Cross-Sectional Metal Sheet Shapes in Adiabatic Evaporative Cooling Pads," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-10, May.
    19. Maheshwari, Mayank & Singh, Onkar, 2020. "Thermo-economic analysis of combined cycle configurations with intercooling and reheating," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    20. Cheng, Xianda & Zheng, Haoran & Dong, Wei & Yang, Xuesen, 2023. "Performance prediction of marine intercooled cycle gas turbine based on expanded similarity parameters," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:253:y:2019:i:c:58. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.