Thermal and Exergy Analysis of an Organic Rankine Cycle Power Generation System with Refrigerant R245fa

Abstract

In this paper, the performance of an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) power generating system operating with refrigerant R245fa was investigated when heat source temperature was below 200 °C. It was found the system thermal efficiency increased but the exergy efficiency of the evaporator decreased with the increase of the heat source temperature. It was also obtained that the exergy efficiency of the evaporator could reach70% when the heat source temperature was 80 °C, which was high enough to prove that the transformation efficiency between the waste heat and the electricity power was ideal. In the simulation model, the area of different parts of the heat exchanger were considered to be varied, flow rate of the waste heat and working medium, the system thermal and exergy efficiency of the evaporator were respectively calculated, the different parameter change regarding the performance influences of the ORC system were simulated. The results can be considered as a reference to research on the design of ORC power generating systems and heat exchangers.

Additional information

Funding

The work described in this paper was supported by a Grant from Shandong Key R&D Program (No. 2017GGX40117), and supported by a Grant from National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 5170 8336).

Notes on contributors

Xinlei Zhou

Xinlei Zhou is a second year master student at the School of Thermal Engineering of Shandong Jianzhu University. His main research interests are in the field of sustainable energy technologies. He has been focused on research on the industrial waste heat recovery for 2 years and has published two papers in refereed journals.

Ping Cui

Ping Cui is an Associate Professor of the School of Thermal Engineering of Shandong Jianzhu University. She obtained her PhD degree in the field of renewable energy applications in buildings from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her main research interests are in building energy management and sustainable energy technologies. She has focused on the study and application of the ground source heat pump technologies since 1999. Now she is conducting the study on the technology of the combination of ground thermal energy and solar energy for building HVAC system. She was/is involved over twelve research and technology development founds from national and local government, and industrial funds. She has published around 40 papers in refereed journals.

Wenke Zhang

Wenke Zhang is a lecturer of the School of Thermal Engineering of Shandong Jianzhu University. His main research areas include heat transfer and ground source heat pump. He obtained the PhD degree from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He has published more than 20 high level papers in journals, and take charge of National and Provincial scientific research projects.