Abstract
When considering waste heat recovery systems for marine applications, which are estimated to be suitable to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions up to 20%, the use of organic Rankine cycle power systems has been proven to lead to higher savings compared to the traditional steam Rankine cycle. However, current methods to estimate the techno-economic feasibility of such a system are complex, computationally expensive and require significant specialized knowledge. This is the first article that presents a simplified method to carry out feasibility analyses for the implementation of organic Rankine cycle waste heat recovery units on board vessels using low-sulfur fuels. The method consists of a set of regression curves derived from a synthetic dataset obtained by evaluating the performance of organic Rankine cycle systems over a wide range of design and operating conditions. The accuracy of the proposed method is validated by comparing its estimations with the ones attained using thermodynamic models. The results of the validation procedure indicate that the proposed approach is capable of predicting the organic Rankine cycle annual energy production and levelized cost of electricity with an average accuracy within 4.5% and 2.5%, respectively. In addition, the results suggest that units optimized to minimize the levelized cost of electricity are designed for lower engine loads, compared to units optimized to maximize the overall energy production. The reliability and low computational time that characterize the proposed method, make it suitable to be used in the context of complex optimizations of the whole ship’s machinery system.
Highlights
The increasing awareness of the environmental impact of the shipping industry is pushing the development of novel solutions to reduce the emission of pollutants from ships
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) recently introduced a novel legislation framework constraining the emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx ) [1] and sulfur oxides (SOx ) [2], and set the vision to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50% compared to the emissions levels of 2008 by Energies 2020, 13, 1378; doi:10.3390/en13061378
The overall method to carry out simplified evaluations for the prospects for installing organic Rankine cycle (ORC) units on board vessels powered by low-sulfur fuels was built by implementing the following steps: (1) a dataset of ORC design power and part-load performance was generated; (2) regression models were developed based on the calculated data; and (3) the reliability of the proposed regression models was tested in two case studies comparing the outputs of the thermodynamic models with outputs of the simplified regression curves
Summary
The increasing awareness of the environmental impact of the shipping industry is pushing the development of novel solutions to reduce the emission of pollutants from ships. In this context, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) recently introduced a novel legislation framework constraining the emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx ) [1] and sulfur oxides (SOx ) [2], and set the vision to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50% compared to the emissions levels of 2008 by 2050 [3]. In theory, lead to a reduction of the emissions from shipping, one of them being the use of liquefied natural gas (LNG) [4]. According to the work from Bouman et al [6], the implementation of waste heat recovery (WHR) solutions on board a vessel can result in a reduction of the carbon dioxide (CO2 )
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