MassiveIndustry

(Wed, 29 Aug 2018) Cooling systems are often the largest source of water use in power plants because of the large amount of heat that must be removed to condense the steam used to drive turbine generators. Historically, this cooling was provided by water sources such as rivers and lakes, but the number of power plants using dry cooling—a cooling system that uses little to no water—has increased in recent years. Dry cooling systems have relatively high capital costs and require more energy to operate. These factors result in lower overall power plant efficiency, but dry cooling systems use about 95% less water than wet systems.