A COMPREHENSIVE ENERGETIC, EXERGETIC AND HEAT TRANSFER ANALYSIS OF A SOLAR ORGANIC RANKINE SYSTEM

Abstract

Environmental concerns have been motivating the use of renewable energy
sources to meet sustainable requirements. In this context, concentrated solar
power driven by organic Rankine cycles has been classified as an up-andcoming
technology to generate energy under low and moderate temperatures.
In order to have a better understanding of the availability and utilization of this
energy resource, the purpose of the present study is to perform a
comprehensive energetic, exergetic and heat transfer analysis of a 200 kW
solar organic Rankine cycle through the presentation of the energy and exergy
efficiencies and losses for each component; the exergy destruction at all stages
of the process; and the heat transfer behavior along the receiver. The thermal
model was developed in Engineering Equation Solver and validated with
literature data. The solar collector was operated with Therminol 66 and the
working fluid employed in the power block was cyclohexane. The energetic
efficiencies achieved in the solar field, power block, and overall system were
64.97; 21.36; and 13.87 %, respectively. Considering the exergetic efficiencies,
they were 27.37; 54.45; and 14.89 %, respectively. The solar resource variation
showed that the higher DNI value, the better the system performance.