Transient Analysis of a Hydrogen-Desalination Cogeneration Nuclear Power Plant: Accident Scenarios within the Hydrogen Production Plant

Abstract

The WHEN (Water-Hydrogen-Electricity Nuclear gas-cooled reactor) system is an integrated system based on a nuclear power plant coupled with desalination and hydrogen production. The WHEN system integrates the HELP (High-Economical Low-Pressure) IS (Iodine- Sulfur) cycle for hydrogen production and the CD (Capacitive Desalination) + MED (Multi Effect Distillation) Hybrid system for desalination on top of the HTGR (High-Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor), which generates electricity. The WHEN system can enhance energy utilization by as much as 70%, and it can be flexibly designed according to various user needs. When we operate this type of cogeneration nuclear power plant, the load balance of each system is critical for the continuous operation of the entire system. A set of transient scenarios was simulated using a system analysis code (the GAMMA code), which can take into account the flow path design of hydrogen production coupling, i.e., undercooling and overcooling transients that are initiated in the hydrogen production plant. From the results of a safety analysis, we confirmed that the undercooling and overcooling transients initiated in the IS cycle do not lead any serious safety problems on the WHEN system.