Design and development of a 10-kWe ORC installation working with low-temperature sources

This paper presents results of the experimental study for a 10-kWe Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) unit that has been designed and developed in order to study its performance when solar or geothermal sources are used. A boiler was used to simulate those conditions and adjustments were made to generate the final heat by a solar or geothermal source in the same pace, size and way, which accurately reflects the operation of each system. R134a was selected as the working fluid. Measurements for key parameters at various points of the cycle were conducted and performance assessment was attempted. Based on the system operation under the conditions that were applied, and considering the various seasons of the year, it was found that the ORC unit working with low-temperature sources is likely to act as a complementary recovery system of heat quantities as the efficiency is rather small, but able to support other systems.