Simulation and analysis of a solar organic rankine cycle

Due to increasing energy consumption throughout the world and consequently growing demand for energy has led humanity to study on various technologies and methods in the field of energy generation. The demand for the alternative energy sources in the energy generation is increasing day by day and the technologies which are driven by the alternative energy resources are becoming increasingly widespread. One of those technologies is Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC). Alternative energy sources such as solar energy, geothermal energy, biomass energy and waste heat energy can be used as energy source in ORC systems. In this study, the mathematical model of an ORC system assisted with evacuated tube solar collectors was developed and the thermodynamic analyses of the model were performed by using Engineering Equation Solver (EES) software. In the analyses, parametric studies were carried out by using R123, R245fa, R600 and R600a organic fluids for Antalya province. In the simulation work which was carried out in EES, the effects of the input parameters, which are the turbine inlet temperature, turbine inlet pressure, pressure ratio, turbine efficiency and pump efficiency, on the system efficiency were investigated for each fluid separately. In addition, the effect of the turbine inlet pressure on both the net power output obtained from the turbine and the heat transfer in the evaporator. Furthermore, the effect of the total incident radiation on the tilted surface on the solar fraction were investigated. Besides, the solar energy determination program was developed as a subprogram of the model by using the Microsoft Visual Basic software to calculate the corresponding solar radiations. In this study, it is considered that the selection of organic fluids, determination of total collector area and collector type, identifying of the thermodynamic properties depending on the parameters at each point in the system will help to determine the factors that could have impact on the performance of such an ORC system. Furthermore, it is also considered that according to system efficiencies and turbine power outputs obtained, the study will be quite suitable for Antalya province and this study will guide studies and investments which will be made in this field.