Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC)
[ Lappeenranta University of Technology, Faculty of Technology, LUT Energy ]
Principle of the ORC Process
Conventional steam power plant cycle is called a Rankine
Cycle, where the working fluid is water. If the heat source
is in a high temperature, and the power sufficiently
high, water is an excellent working fluid. It has very
good thermal stability, it is non-toxic, non-combustible,
inexpensive, has a zero ODP and a zero BWP. However,
if the heat source is in reduced temperature, and /or if
the power level is low, selecting an organic fluid instead
of water gives several benefits.
Most of the present ORC-plants are based on
conventional turbine technology, which includes shaft
seals, a reduction gear, an air cooled generator and a
lubricating oil system. Heat to the process is introduced
either directly or by using a thermo-oil circuit. But
also an integrated turbo-generator concept has been
developed, using the organic fluid as lubricant and as
the generator coolant. This concept allows a completely
hermetic design, with no need for shaft seals or a
separate lubrication system.
Principle of the High-Speed ORC. Turbine, generator and feed pump are on the same
shaft, which is provided with process fluid lubrigated bearings
ORC Power Plant Development at LUT
- Four prototypes of a turbogenerator-feed pump;
first 1982
- Three prototypes of a complete plant; 1985, 1987,
1992
- Design of commercial plants 1993 - 1996, 1999
- Commercial plant 2003; Tri-O-Gen / LUT
- 10 new commercial plants 2004 -2010;
Tri-O-Gen B.V., Holland
- Key component: an oil-free, hermetic turbo
generator-feed pump
Rotor of the High-Speed ORC. From left to
right: turbine, generator, cooling fan, feed
pump. Speed 27 000 1/min, electric power
160 kW
Enroll on LUT Energy courses, which deal with ORC.
BH40A1300 Power Engines in Renewable Energy,
BH40A0800 Termiset virtauskoneet,
BH40A0300 Energianmuuntoprosessit.
WELCOME!
Micro ORC in Distributed Energy Systems
By selecting a suitable working fluid and by using high
speed technology with hermetic turbo generator, the ORC
power plant may be realized in a very small power size
(below 5 kW) with a reasonable or even a good efficiency.
Ormat has already for decades made small ORC-units
for special applications. By manufacturing the Micro-
ORC unit in large series, it should be possible to obtain a
price level, which would make it suitable as a household
CHP-power plant.
Benefits and Disadvantages of ORC Process
When the organic fluid is selected properly (vaporization
happens near the critical point) and the relative magnitude
of vaporization heat is small, we can obtain a significantly
higher average temperature and thus a higher process
efficiency.
The specific enthalpy drop of organic vapors in the turbine
is small when compared to water vapor. This makes
turbine design easy. In most cases a single stage turbine
with reasonable tip speed is sufficient.
Most of the organic working fluids have good dielectric
properties. This means that the generator windings may
be exposed to organic vapor. In contrary water is poor
insulator and may cause short circuits in windings.
Disadvantage of the turbine design is the low sound
velocity in organic fluids. Thus, despite the reasonable
low gas velocities, supersonic velocities cannot usually
be avoided in single stage ORC-turbines. Despite of
the supersonic velocity challenges it is easy to make a
small ORC (e.g. 25 kW) with a high efficiency single stage
turbine, but water vapor process must be made in most
cases with a three or four stage turbine, thus resulting
as a practical minimum size of 1000 kW.
High-Speed ORC (yellow) producing electricity from the manure of cows. Process con-
tainer producing the required biogas from manure is shown on the right. Picture: Tri-
O-Gen B.V.