Solar electricity production

with Organic Rankine Cycle

turbines
[INTRO-DRAFT]
Maria Kaninia
27/05/2011
“Standard” technologies for solar electricity - 1
 Photovoltaics: dominant “mainstream” technology (large-scale
plants, roofing)
 Feed-in tariffs decreasing to reach grid parity

flat crystallic
panels

thin-film (roofing)

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“Standard” technologies for solar electricity - 2

 “Standard” solar thermal plants

 = optical concentrators + mechanical heat engines + storage option (molten salt)
 large-scale (~ 10-100 MWe)

linear Fresnel array

power tower

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“Innovative” thermal small-scale technologies for
solar electricity - 3
 parabolic dish concentrator (tracker) + Stirling heat engine
 high direct normal insolation required (arid regions, no clouds)
 not yet widely deployed commercially in Europe

Plataforma Solar de
Almería

dish Stirling (25 kWe)

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Specific project location and
environment conditions: Western Greece

Resource: low grade solar heat (harvested with solar flat plate collectors)


Business opportunity: feed-in tariffs for solar
thermal power plants (Greece: €250/MWhe)

medium-scale installation +
Financial constraint:
size of investment (~100 kWe , ~100 k€)

Proposed conversion technology: Organic Rankine Cycle

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 ORC system

Organic Rankine Cycle

prototyped in 1961
by Harry Zvi Tabor

 thermodynamic cycle
 similar to “classical” Rankine cycle of steam turbines
 “inverse” refrigeration cycle
 working fluid: organic substance (e.g. refrigerant fluid)
 low vaporisation temperature
 low pressure
 binary ORC cycle: established commercial application for power
generation from geothermal low-enthalpy resources (e.g. ORMAT, TURBODEN)

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ORC sub-cycle #1: hot “resource”
thermal oil

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ORC sub-cycle #2: organic fluid
typical

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ORC sub-cycle #3: cooling water

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Solar collectors
no optical concentrators

 array of series-connected flat plate solar collectors

 thermal oil (low pressure) at temperatures above 100oC
 intermediate storage

design approach
•Overdimensioning of the solar
collectors array
•Implement storage
•Achieve maximum nominal
output from ORC system

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 Equipment: ORC system, Purecycle®
 Nominal net output: 260 kWe
 Reversed centrifugal chiller
 Refrigerant R245fa
 CF3CH2CHF2 pentafluoropropane
 (boiling point @1 atm = 14.9oC)

centrifugal compressor
centrifugal “expander”
(+generator)

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 Project data
 Project assumptions:
 location: Messologhi, Western Greece
 solar resource: TH = 100oC (overdimensioning)
 additionalstorage to “stabilise” output
 heat sink temperature: TL = ~ 25oC (seawater)
 low ratio direct / global irradiation
 Resource:
 Approximately 4kWh/m2/day = 1460kWh/m2/y

Global irradiance - fixed pla nce

900
800
700
600
500 JAN

W/m2
400 JUL
300
200
100
0
4:48 7:12 9:36 12:00 14:24 16:48 19:12

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Location of intended project
•actual project
•“soft version”
presentation
•“test-drive”
•comments

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