Potential for energy recovery from internal combustion engines driving electrical generators in Iraq cities

ABSTRACT

Distributed power generation may become an important segment in the energy sector in Iraq. The main objective of this paper is to estimate the potential of heat recovery from the Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) driving electric generators in Iraq. The heat recovery solution considered here is based on Organic Rankine Cycles (ORCs). A model has been developed for an ORC-based system recovering heat from a small/medium size ICE (37.7 kW), which is appropriate for large-scale implementation in Iraq. The model has been validated against results reported in the literature. The main steps of the procedure used to design an ORC-based system are presented, with proper illustrations. They include working fluid selection, performance analysis for each component of the system (evaporator, condenser, and expander) and sizing the main components of the system (evaporator and condenser). The heat recovery efficiency is higher in the North of Iraq and ranges between 8% and 11% in January and between 4% and 7% in July, depending on working fluid and geographical location. R134a provides the highest efficiency, while the second-best working fluid is R1234ze. We adopted the hypothesis that 20% of the power capacity to be installed in Iraq until 2020 is provided by electric generators driven by ICEs of medium power (37 kW). 125000 units should be installed and the investment is about 1.5 billion Euro while heat recovery units may cost about 500 million euro, if manufactured in dedicated factories. Heat recovery may save about 7.5% of the installed power. The government should prepare appropriate policies to stimulate distributed power generation and heat recovery.

KEYWORDS:

• Iraq
• electric generator
• internal combustion engines
• waste heat recovery
• Organic Rankine Cycle

Disclosure statement

We acknowledge that there is no financial interest or benefit that has arisen from the direct applications of our research.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding of Romania [PN-II-PT PCCA-2011-3.2-0059, Grant No.: 75/2012].