Impact of the relative humidity on the LNG cold energy based inlet air cooled microturbine systems

Vaporization of liquefied natural gas (LNG) can be used as heat sinks in the external thermal cycles, and these processes are known as LNG cold utilization systems. Inlet air cooling application is one of the LNG cold utilization methods in the power generation sector, and it provides lower compressor inlet temperatures to increase the thermal efficiency and the net generated work. This study performs the simulations of energetic, environmental and economic approaches for the 30 kW and 65 kW microturbine systems for various relative humidity values under different ambient air temperatures. It is found that the relative humidity did not have a crucial impact on the net generate work rate and thermal efficiency although it causes a slight decrement from 60% RH to 90% RH. The environmental analyses show that the emission rate increases by the rising of relative humidity. Moreover, the environmental payback period increases by the rising of the relative humidity value. Lastly, the payback periods are investigated and it is seen that the relative humidity and the ambient air temperature do not have any crucial impact on the payback periods. The payback periods are found as 4.34 and 3.27 years for the 30 kW and 65 kW models, respectively.