Towards development of 1-10 kW pilot ORC units operating with hexamethyldisiloxane and using rotary vane expander

Abstract

Micro-cogeneration and small scale waste heat recovery has its place in the concept of sustainable future and distributed electricity generation as it should provide environmental, economical and social advantages. ORC belongs among perspective technologies to achieve a successful commercialization. Domain of power output below 10 kW is particularly interesting because it brings a possibility of energy production to a wide range of potential customers. Widespread of solid fuels fired heating systems and a desire for renewable energy suggest a combination of biomass and cogeneration systems.There is an eight-year history of an ORC development at the Czech Technical University aiming at applications for cogeneration and waste heat recovery with power output between 1 and 10 kW. This work shows the overall development over four different ORC units. Development of different concepts, configurations or choice of technologies is presented in this work together with the obtained performance parameters. Common feature of all presented units are use of rotary vane expander (of which three different generations have been designed and tested).