Performance evaluation of solar based combined pre-compression supercritical CO2 cycle and organic Rankine cycle

The present study deals with performance analysis of solar power tower powered combined pre-compression supercritical CO2 cycle and organic Rankine cycle (ORC) for recovering waste heat. Results showed that net power output and thermal efficiency of pre-compression cycle was improved by 4.51 and 4.52%, respectively, using ORC. Highest thermal, exergy efficiency, and power output of the combined cycle increased with solar irradiation having highest values 51.83, 74.06%, and 278.5 kW at 1000 W/m(2) of solar irradiation using R227ea. Waste heat recovery ratio increased with heat exchanger effectiveness. Its highest value was found as 0.5673 at 0.95 of effectiveness based on R227ea.

Automated summary

The study found that using ORC can improve the power output and thermal efficiency of the pre-compression cycle, and the performance of the combined cycle also increases as solar irradiation increases. The waste heat recovery ratio also increases with the effectiveness of the heat exchanger.