Performance Evaluation of a Solar-Powered Regenerative Organic Rankine Cycle in Different Climate Conditions

Abstract

Abstract:A model to evaluate the performance of a solar powered regenerative Organic Rankine Cycle (R-ORC) using five dry organic fluids: RC318, R227ea, R236ea, R236fa, and R218, is presented in this paper. The system is evaluated in two locations in the U.S.: Jackson, MS and Tucson, AZ. The weather data for each location is used to determine the heat available from the solar collector that could be used by the R-ORC to generate power. Results from the R-ORC performance are compared with a basic ORC using first and second law criteria as well as primary energy consumption (PEC) and carbon dioxide emission (CDE) savings for both locations. An economic analysis to determine the maximum capital cost for a desired payback period is presented in this paper. A parametric analysis is also performed to study the effect of the turbine efficiency as well as the open feed organic fluid heater intermediate pressure on the system performance. Results indicate that the R-ORC is able to generate more power than the basic ORC for some of the selected working fluids. For the R-ORC, R236ea is the working fluid that show the best performance among the evaluated fluids under the modeled conditions. On the other hand, the basic ORC with R236ea as the working fluid outperformed three of the fluids in the R-ORC. Also, the R-ORC evaluated in Tucson, AZ is able to generate more power, to provide more PEC and CDE savings, and had a higher available capital cost than the R-ORC evaluated in in Jackson, MS.

Economic, Energetic, and Environmental Performance of a Solar Powered Organic Rankine Cycle with Electric Energy Storage in Different Commercial Buildings

“…Tucson, AZ was selected because of the high levels of direct normal irradiance available [39]. The selected organic working fluid is R236ea since it has shown to have a good performance in ORC applications [26]. There are 16 commercial reference building models developed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which can represent almost 70% of the commercial buildings in the U.S [40].…”

“…In a previous study by Spayde et al [26], an hourly model for both a solar powered ORC and a solar powered regenerative ORC was developed using flat plate collectors in place of an evaporator for the ORC. Both ORC systems were evaluated using five different dry working fluids.…”

“…Previous studies have modeled storing excess electricity from a solar powered ORC in a battery bank whereas the model presented in this paper stores all generated electricity from the solar ORC in the electric energy storage device before supplying electricity to the building. The ORC system used in this study is based on the model presented in a previous study by Spayde et al [26]. The operational strategy of the ORC-EES system consists in the ORC charging the EES device when there is adequate solar irradiation to power the ORC and using the energy from the EES device when there is not sufficient irradiation to generate power from the ORC.…”

Preliminary Design of Organic Rankine Cycle using Solar Thermal in Hungary

“…By using (7) it is found that the highest Qu is reached at the peak sun position. Furthermore, by (8), the output temperature of the solar collector, which will be used to heat the ORC working fluid in the evaporator by converting it into a steam turbine, can be determined. Based on Fig.…”

“…Reference [7] did a simulation analysis of small-scale solar ORC trigenerative systems. On the other side, [8] investigated regenerative solar-ORC using different climate conditions. According to such research, the conclusion of using cycle optimization is improve both of energy production and increase of thermal efficiencies.…”