Performance Characteristics of Combined Heat and Power Generation with Series Circuit Using Organic Rankine Cycle

Abstract

A combined heat and power cogeneration system driven by low-temperature sources is investigated by the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The system consists of Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) and an additional process heater as a series circuit. Seven working fluids of R152a, propane, isobutane, butane, R11, R123, isopentane and n-pentane are considered in this work. Maximum mass flow rate of a working fluid relative to that of the source fluid is considered to extract maximum power from the source. Results indicate that the second-law efficiency can be significantly increased due to the combined heat and power generation. Furthermore, higher source temperature and lower turbine inlet pressure lead to lower second-law efficiency of ORC system but higher that of combined system. Results also show that the optimum working fluid varies with the source temperature.