摘要:Growing energy demands and the desire to reduce pollution have increased interest in research on unconventional power plant technologies. Geothermal power plant technology is an important area being explored as a renewable and environmentally benign alternative to fossil fuel technologies. Geothermal power plants have sources of emissions associated with use, including the use of evaporation ponds. An example of a geothermal power generation unit that utilized an evaporation pond to manage spent geothermal fluids during its operation is the Cerro Prieto I plant in Mexico. A theoretical model is developed to retrofit the plant with geothermal fluid re-injection. Energy and exergy analyses are performed for the standard plant, using the evaporation pond, as well as a hypothetical system utilizing fluid re-injection. The plant without re-injection is found to have an energy efficiency of 12.6% and an exergy efficiency of 47.5%. With re-injection the energy efficiency is 16.5% and the exergy efficiency is 51.5%. The greatest loss in the standard system is through direct discharge of the geothermal fluids to the evaporation pond.