The ambient temperature varies over the course of a day, which raises a question regarding a steam Rankine cycle cooled by seawater: Does the condenser's outlet temperature fluctuate in response to the daily variations in seawater temperature, or is a power plant engineered to maintain a constant outlet temperature from the condenser regardless of temperature change of the seawater?
Yes, definitely. I have been writing software to model this very thing for almost 50 years. I have lots of graph and real-world operations. This figure is based on actual operation at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant. Sorry that this ebook won't be free until March 12 but the software that goes with it is always free at my website. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YJ1JFLS
In my experience, mainly related with the design and operation of some Spanish nuclear power plants, PWR type and cooled by water taken from a lake or river, the temperature at the condenser inlet was more important to watch the Mwe produced by the plant. The watching of the temperature at the condenser outlet, was specially important in summer, to avoid overpass the temperature limit established for the discharge to the river.
@Hafiz-Aman-Zaharil
I am not sure which "condenser's outlet temperature" you are talking about. Do you mean the temperature of the sea cooling water leaving the condenser, or the condensed steam (main Rankine cycle fluid) coming out of the condenser's hotwell. Anyhow, answers to two questions are kinda close.
The daily fluctuations of sea water temperature will determine the vacuum inside the condenser's shell side. Operators cannot do anything to reduce the pressure of the condenser's shell when the sea temperature is going up (especially at full load). This, as you know, will decrease the steam turbine's power generation.
But if you're talking about the outlet temperature of sea water, it will increase when the inlet temperature of sea water is increasing. But the increased amount is different from the condenser hotwell outlet (it increases almost linearly). Additionally, this temperature depends on the power plant's load.
Of course, I refer to the cooling water temperature at the inlet and outlet of the condenser, not to the condensate temperature at the hotwell outlet.
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