OPERATION OPTIMIZATION AND PERFORMANCE STUDY OF SOLAR POWERED ORGANIC RANKINE POWER PLANT WITH REGENERATOR

Abstract

This paper presents operation optimization and performance study of solar powered organic Rankine power plant with regenerative feed using toluene as the cycle working fluid. In the operation optimization, the optimised parameters are : extraction fraction , intermidiate pressure and mass flowrate of the cycle working fluid and they are optimised with respect to efficiency and the net power output. In the performance study, the effects of hot fluid inlet temperature, high pressure turbine inlet temperature, condenser pressure and boiler pressure on efficiency and system net power generation have been investigated. Considered performance parameters are efficiency and the net power output. The optimization result reveals that increasing the extraction fraction, intermediate pressure and working fluid mass flow rate increases the efficiency and the net power output at the beginning until they attain their corresponding maximum values and continuing to increase these values causes the reduction of both efficiency and the net power output. The performance study also indicates that increasing the hot fluid inlet temperature and boiler pressure causes an increase in net power output and thermal efficiency. But increasing high pressure turbine inlet temperature and the condenser pressure results in reduction of both efficiency and the net power output.