Investigation of Water Consumption in Loshan Power Plant and Technical-Economic Evaluation of the Suggested Solutions to Modify the Consumption Pattern

Lack of water is considered the most important threat to the survival of human beings and natural ecosystems. Food and energy security, health and industrial progress, which are the main components of the sustainable development of societies, depend on water more than anything else. Water consumption in Loshan power plant is 2600 L/MWh raw water, which is very high compared to the production capacity and is due to having a tower in its cooling system. Considering the high volume of water consumed in this power plant compared to the production efficiency and on the other hand, reducing the amount of rainfall and droughts that have occurred, it is necessary to provide a solution to modify the consumption pattern for this power plant. Considering the special position of this power plant, solutions to modify the water consumption pattern by recycling clean drains (blow down of boilers, back wash of sand filters and water sampling), purification and recycling the blow down of cooling towers into the water cycle and optimization of cooling towers (replacing drippers, replacing nozzles and optimizing water distribution to increase efficiency, using a rotating nozzle to increase the time and speed of the water droplets hitting the air in order to transfer more heat) are suggested. According to the experimental data, the conductivity of boiler blowdown is about 10 μs/cm and the expenses of recycling the blowdown of boiler by using heat exchanger is estimated about 324.425.000 Rials.