Thermodynamic analysis of a low-temperature organic Rankine cycle power plant operating at off-design conditions

This paper deals with an experimental study on a 50-kW Organic Rankine cycle (ORC) power generation plant driven by low-grade heat source. Hot water boiler and solar-thermal system were used as the low-grade heat source providing hot water at temperature ranging from 65 to 95 °C. A twin screw compressor has been modified as the expansion machine in the ORC module and its expansion efficiency under variable operating conditions was tested in the experiments. This work was purposed to assess the ORC system and get the performance map at off-design operating conditions in a typical year from the view of the first and the second law of thermodynamics. The maximum electricity production and thermal efficiency were 46.5 kW and 6.52% respectively at the optimal operating condition. The highest exergetic efficiency reached 36.3% and the exergy analysis showed that evaporation pressure and condensation pressure were the key parameters to influence the exergy flow and exergetic efficiency. Furthermore, by fitting the actual plant data obtained in different months, an empirical model has been developed to predict the net power output and thermal efficiency with acceptable accuracy. Lastly, as an illustration, the empirical model is used to analyze the performance of the solar-driven ORC system.