ORC APPLICATIONS FROM LOW GRADE HEAT SOURCES

asme-orc2015 Tracking Number 134

The Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) has been proven as an efficient way to benefit from low grade heat sources, with a great interest in waste heat recovery and use of renewable heat sources. In this way, this work deals about three different applications implemented in Spain. The first application consists of a power only system for industrial waste heat recovery. The system takes advantage from the exhaust air of a ceramic furnace to produce a rated electrical power of 20 kW [1]. The second application is a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system integrated as a bottoming power cycle of an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), with the purpose to recover waste heat from exhaust gases. This system is installed in a hospital to increase the ICE electrical production and generate hot water up to 90 ºC [2]. The third application can operate producing both power only and CHP. The ORC module is used to profit thermal energy from a biomass supported solar thermal system and produce a maximum electrical power about 6 kW and hot water above 80 ºC [3]. Thereby, these applications are addressed in this paper. Moreover, focusing on the ORC modules performance, experimental data obtained from tests developed under different operating conditions, that correspond to low grade heat sources, are analyzed and discussed.