5
Single-Flash Steam Power Plants 87

to install a booster pump upstream of the vapor breakout point. It is preferable to

have the injection piping run downhill. Any drop in temperature of the liquid will mit-
igate the problem of flashing but will exacerbate the potential problem of chemical
precipitation; see Sect. 6.6.

5.3 Energy conversion system

The terminology single-flash system indicates that the geofluid has undergone a single
flashing process, i.e., a process of transitioning from a pressurized liquid to a mixture
of liquid and vapor, as a result of lowering the geofluid pressure below the saturation
pressure corresponding to the fluid temperature.
The flash process may occur in a number of places: (1) in the reservoir as the fluid
flows through the permeable formation with an accompanying pressure drop; (2) in
the production well anywhere from the entry point to the wellhead as a result of the
loss of pressure due to friction and the gravity head; or (3) in the inlet to the cyclone
separator as a result of a throttling process induced by a control valve or an orifice
plate. It is often the case in a newly developed field that the flashing occurs in the well-
bore initially, but with time as the field undergoes exploitation and the reservoir pres-
sure declines, the flash point may move down the well and even enter the formation.
Sometimes the term “separated steam” is used for this type of plant owing to the
manner in which the steam is obtained for use in the turbine.
While the actual location of the flash point can be important in the operation of a
power plant, from the point of view of understanding the thermodynamics of the energy
conversion process, it is irrelevant. We will assume that the geofluid starts off as a com-
pressed liquid somewhere in the reservoir, that it experiences a flashing process some-
where, that the two-phases are separated, and that the steam is then used to drive a
turbine which in turn drives the electric generator. A simple schematic of this operation
is given in Fig. 5.6 [6], where the main components of a single-flash plant are shown.
At each production well, PW, there is a assemblage of equipment to control and mon-
itor the flow of the geofluid from the well to the plant. This equipment includes: several
valves, WV, a silencer, S, (simple cyclone separator for emergency venting), piping, and
instrumentation (pressure and temperature gauges). If wellhead separators are used,
the cyclone separator, CS, will be located close to the wellhead on the same pad.

Fig. 5.6 Simplified single-flash power plant schematic [6].