Carnot cycle in practice: compensating inefficiencies of ORC expanders through thermal regeneration

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The Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is a thermodynamic cycle that can operate with a hot source over a wide range of temperatures, especially with low-grade heat (below 200°C). One of the main limitations for the success of small-scale ORC cycles (few to 100 kWe) is the relatively low isentropic efficiency of the typically used turbomachinery. Low turbine efficiency leads to low ORC cycle performance. To increase the performance of the cycle, the turbine efficiency must be increase, however, this significantly increases the cost of the machinery, making the cycle less profitable. In this work, the performance evaluation of low-temperature ORC cycles (100-150°C) with heat extraction along the expansion process is investigated, in an attempt to overcome this limitation. The studied cycle works in the same way as a conventional ORC, except that during the expansion process, heat is extracted. This heat is re-used later in the cycle, just before the hot source, allowing to reduce its load. The different cycles presented in this paper, using pentane as working fluid, are compared based on their exergetic and energetic efficiencies. The influence of three parameters on the cycle performance is studied: the regeneration ratio, the maximum temperature of the cycle and the turbine isentropic efficiency. In the case of a cycle using pentane with a maximum temperature of 150 °C and an turbine isentropic efficiency of 65%, the energy efficiency increases from 6.2% to 16.3% when going from no regeneration to full regeneration, and the exergy efficiency increases from 21.1 to 45.8%.. Secondly, the influence of the maximum temperature of the cycle is studied. Using pentane as the working fluid, the higher the maximum temperature is, the larger the benefits of heat extraction. However, this temperature cannot exceed the critical temperature of the organic fluid to stay in the case of a subcritical cycle. Finally, considering the turbine isentropic efficiency, it is possible to demonstrate that using a less efficient turbine, for example in small ORC systems, the performance of a cycle with an ideal turbine isentropic efficiency (100%) can be achieved compensating at cycle level the turbine losses with the heat extraction along the expansion process.