Utilization of LNG cryogenic energy in a proposed method for inlet air cooling to improve the performance of a combined cycle

© 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd. In this study a cold production process was proposed for inlet air cooling in which cryogenic energy from liquefied natural gas (LNG) was sufficiently converted to cold energy. The effect of using the cold production process for inlet air cooling on the off-design performance of a gas turbine combined cycle was analyzed under different ambient conditions. The cold output of the proposed process was increased by about 38.1% to 42.5% compared to that of the conventional cold production process that involves direct LNG evaporation. Furthermore for the inlet air cooling, the proposed method increased the relative power increment from 2.2% to 14.4% and the relative efficiency increment from 0.7% to 2.2%, mainly depending on the variations in the relative humidity, compared to cold production without air cooling. The relative power and relative efficiency of the proposed air cooling were increased by 0.6% to 3.1% and 0.3% to 0.5%, respectively, above those of the traditional air cooling.