Conceptual modelling of a power plant for the Sabalan geothermal area, Iran

Abstract

In this report, conceptual models of two types of power plants are presented for a geothermal project on the western slopes of Mt. Sabalan, approximately 16 km south east of Meshkin Shahr City, in the province of Ardabil in NW-Iran. Geothermal exploration activity in this geothermal field is on-going with the drilling of 3 deep exploration wells for determining the parameters of the reservoir. If the characteristics of the reservoir are acceptable, the project will continue. Thermodynamical design is one of the best ways for making a model of a geothermal power plant and the Engineering Equation Solver (EES) software is very useful for calculating the thermodynamical parameters of the equipment in the geothermal power plant. Here it is used for modelling single flash and ORC power plants for the Meshkin Shahr area. As the first well had not yet been tested in September 2004, general values based on known geothermal fields and wells were used for testing the models.