Performance comparison of basic and parallel double evaporator Organic Rankine Cycle integrated with solar based supercritical CO2 cycle

Abstract

Performance comparison of basic organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and parallel double evapora-tor ORC (PDORC) integrated with solar power tower (SPT) driven intercooled cascade sCO2 (supercritical carbon dioxide) cycle was carried out in present study. The intercooled cascade sCO2 cycle/ORC (configuration-1) and the intercooled cascade sCO2 cycle/PDORC (configu-ration-2) were considered for comparison on basis of parametric analysis. The effects of SPT design parameters such as solar irradiation, solar receiver emittance, and concentration ratio on system performance were investigated. It was concluded that the addition of basic ORC and PDORC to the intercooled cascade sCO2 cycle improved the thermal efficiency by 2.26% and 6.66% respectively at solar irradiation of 950 W/m2. In the case of basic ORC and PDORC, the waste heat recovery ratios were 0.1197 and 0.1775, respectively. It was also discovered that configuration-2 performed better than configuration-1 in terms of waste heat recovery. The combined cycle’s performance can be improved even more by lowering solar emittance and increasing the concentration ratio.