Binary ORC (Organic Rankine Cycles) power plants for the exploitation of medium-low temperature geothermal sources - Part B: Techno-economic optimization

Cycle parameters found from the techno-economic optimization are compared with those assumed and found from the thermodynamic optimization. Quite relevant differences show the necessity to perform optimization on the basis of specific plant cost. As a general trend, it is however confirmed that configurations based on supercritical cycles, employing fluids with a critical temperature slightly lower than the temperature of the geothermal source, lead to the lowest electricity cost for most of the investigated cases.