Gas turbine inlet air cooling using absorption refrigeration: A comparison based on a combined cycle process

Gas turbines are used to meet increasing power-generating needs throughout the world. Technologies for augmenting the capacity of new or existing installations are being devised. One common strategy is to employ evaporative cooling of gas turbine inlet air. This method is attractive because of simplicity and relatively modest hardware requirements. Another strategy is to recover exhaust heat in order to activate an absorptionrefrigeration machine. The cooling machine output is then used to cool and dehumidify the compressor inlet air. In this paper, we delineate a heat recovery system for steam/power production, and an ammonia-water absorption machine. The ammonia-water technology offers an element of novelty in that it is capable of chilling the air to lower temperatures than the currently used lithium-bromide technology, or than the evaporative cooling approach. Performance calculations based on leading commercial software are offered. In a simple payback analysis based on the numbers obtained from the simulation, we discuss the potential of the technique.