Apparatus and method for condensing steam

摘要

Condensing exhaust steam by conveying a stream of the exhaust steam under vacuum to a base cooling tower to condense the steam so long as the heat rejection capacity of the base cooling tower is adequate to condense the steam; supplementing the base cooling tower, when it provides inadequate cooling, by contemporaneously also withdrawing cold cooling water from a cold water reservoir and injecting the cooling water into the stream of exhaust steam under vacuum to condense a portion of the steam to water such that the remaining portion of the steam is condensed to water in the base cooling tower; withdrawing hot condensed water from the exhaust steam stream and feeding a portion thereof to a hot reservoir; withdrawing hot cooling water from the hot reservoir, when the cooling tower capacity is adequate to decrease the temperature of the exhaust steam to below the temperature of the hot cooling water in the hot reservoir, and subjecting the withdrawn hot cooling water to the exhaust steam vacuum to cool the hot cooling water by converting part of the water to steam; and feeding the so-cooled cooling water to the cold water reservoir.