Techno-economic feasibility investigation of incorporating an energy storage with an exhaust heat recovery system for underground mines in cold climatic regions

Durjoy Baidya, Marco Antonio Rodrigues de Brito and Seyed Ali Ghoreishi-Madiseh

Applied Energy, 2020, vol. 273, issue C, No S0306261920308011

Abstract: Millions of liters of diesel or propane are burnt every year in remote mines for pre-heating the intake air, leaving a monumental size of carbon footprint every year. A novel zero-carbon heating model for remote underground mine has been investigated. Both the technical and financial feasibility of integrating a validated seasonal thermal energy storage with an exhaust heat recovery system in the proposed model have been investigated. An analytical model has been developed and inspected along with different set-point temperatures, heat exchanger effectiveness, and vulnerability of fossil fuel price to judge the performance of this integrated approach. Energy savings by the exhaust heat recovery system and the seasonal thermal energy storage have been enumerated separately, and based on that, a rockpile-based seasonal thermal energy storage has been sized reasonably throughout the study. The system reaches the breakeven point in 2.6–4.8 years, depending on the operating conditions. The life cycle assessment compares the amount of carbon emission from different available heating systems for remote mines with the proposed integrated heating system. The present system provides a typical remote underground mining operation with an opportunity to eliminate the entire 15–23 million kilograms of carbon emission for heating purposes.

Keywords: Remote mines; Waste heat recovery; Seasonal thermal energy storage; Rockpile thermal energy storage; Zero carbon heating system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115289

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