- Email: [email protected]
Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery
Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Energy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy
Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery Xiao-Qiong Wang, Xiao-Ping Li, You-Rong Li*, Chun-Mei Wu Key Laboratory of Low-grade Energy Utilization Technologies and Systems of Ministry of Education, College of Power Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Received 18 January 2015 Received in revised form 27 April 2015 Accepted 12 May 2015 Available online xxx
This paper presents a theoretical model on the payback period of a subcritical ORC (organic Rankine cycle) system for recovering low-grade waste heat of flue gas. Based on the minimum payback period principle, a detailed internal parameter optimization is carried out. Furthermore, the influences of external parameters on the payback period are analyzed and a new criterion of screening working fluids is proposed. Results show that the payback period of the ORC system decreases before increasing with the increase of evaporation temperature, condensation temperature, and the pinch point temperature differences in the evaporator and condenser. The minimum payback period of the ORC system decreases monotonously with the increase of the inlet temperature, mass flow rate of the flue gas, and the electricity price. When the minimum payback period and the net power output are used as indicators of selecting working fluids of the ORC system, this work identifies a specific working fluid for a given inlet flue gas temperature. We demonstrate this process by showing that R236a, R245fa, and R113 should be selected as the working fluids when the inlet temperatures of the flue gas are around 150 C, 200 C and 250 C, respectively. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Organic Rankine cycle Payback period Waste heat recovery Parameter optimization Working fluids
1. Introduction During the past century, there has been a dramatic increase of energy consumption, due in part to the rapid growth of the world population and the increase of development of industrial activity. The issue of meeting the global energy demand in the face of natural resources shortage provides a strong incentive to recover the low-grade waste heat. It has been found that more than 50% total heat generated in the industry is the low-grade waste heat, where temperatures are in the range of 100e220 C [1,2]. The ORC (organic Rankine cycle) is a promising technology that can effectively convert the low-grade waste heat into electricity [3e5]. The ORC technology has attracted increasing attention because of its simple construction, flexibility, low operation cost and high recovery efficiency. Studies of parameter optimization, working fluid selection, performance evaluation, and many other variables of the ORC system have been performed by numerous investigators [6e8]. Among current evaluation systems, there are three main
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ86 23 65112284. E-mail address: [email protected] (Y.-R. Li).
categories: basic energy analysis, exergy analysis and thermoeconomic assessment. Rashidi et al. [9] performed a parametric optimization of a regenerative ORC using thermal efficiency, exergy efficiency and specific work as objective functions. It was found that the maximum values of the objective functions for R717 as the working fluid are greater than those for water. Heberle et al. [10] added a heat production term to the ORC and modeled their system as series and parallel circuits. In the series circuits model, based on the second law analysis, it was concluded that the working fluid with high critical temperature, such as isopentane, is suitable for the ORC. Fluids with low critical temperature, such as isobutane and R227ea, should be favored in the parallel circuits and power generation. With the net power output as an objective function, He et al. [11] proposed a theoretical formula on the optimal evaporation temperature in subcritical ORC system. It was found that there is a 25% difference in the maximum net power outputs of twentytwo working fluids at the same conditions. When the critical temperature of the working fluid approaches the inlet temperature of the low-grade waste heat source, the net power output exhibits the largest value. Dai et al. [12] compared and analyzed the ORC system performance with ten pure working fluids under the same waste heat condition with the exergy efficiency as an objective
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095 0360-5442/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
2
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
Nomenclature A C CBM CEPCI COM Cp h K M m NE P pe PP Q T W
heat transfer area, m2 cost, $ bare module cost, $ chemical engineering's plant cost index cost of operation and maintenance, $ purchased cost, $ specific enthalpy, kJ/kg heat transfer coefficient, W/(m2$K) molecular weight, kg/kmol mass flow rate, kg/s net earning per year, $/year pressure, Pa price of electricity, $/(kW$h) payback period, year heat flow rate, W temperature, C power output or input, kW
Subscripts a air c condenser cri critical e evaporator eg electrical generator ex exergy f cooling fan fm fluid machinery g flue gas he heat exchanger i inlet is isentropic o outlet opt optimal p pump pp pinch point t turbine th thermal wf working fluid
Greek symbols h efficiency
function. The results showed that the ORC with R236EA as the working fluid has the highest exergy efficiency, and adding an internal heat exchanger into the ORC system does not improve the performance under the given waste heat condition. Additional thermoeconomic criteria have also been applied in the performance evaluation of the ORC system. Guo et al. [13], Hettiarachchi et al. [14] and Li et al. [15e17] carried out the performance analysis and parametric optimization on subcritical ORC systems for the recovery of the low-grade waste heat. They used several different screening criteria, including the net power output per unit mass flow rate of hot source, the ratio of the net power output to heat transfer area, and the electricity production cost. Their analysis indicated that a set of the optimum evaporation temperature and pinch point temperature differences of heat exchangers would maximize the net power output. However, the optimum parameter values depend on the used screening criteria. Zhang et al. [18] used up to five indicators to select the optimum working fluid and optimize the operation parameters. They are thermal efficiency, exergy efficiency, recovery efficiency, heat exchanger area per unit power output, and the levelized energy cost. The results showed that the optimal working fluid and the optimal values of the operation parameters are not all the same for different indicators. Furthermore, Shu et al. [19] established a multi-approach evaluation system to provide comprehensive evaluations on the ORC systems used in the low-grade waste heat recovery. The evaluation system covers three aspects: basic evaluations of energy distribution and system efficiency, evaluations of exergy distribution and exergy efficiency, and economic evaluations. Two typical ORC systems were used to illustrate the evaluation system for recovering low-grade waste heat. It was shown that this system provides a general method of ORC performance evaluation. The payback period of the ORC system is another important economical criterion in the commercial production of electricity [20]. It is the most direct indicator to reveal the exact period before the ORC system can make a net profit. Furthermore, the way to shorten the payback period is also effective to improve performance of the ORC system. It is significant to make estimation for the payback period of the ORC system and to optimize the
operating parameters based on the criterion of the minimum payback period. However, there are only a few investigations on the payback period of the ORC system. Therefore, a theoretical model on the payback period of the ORC system for recovering low-grade waste heat of flue gas from industrial boiler is presented in this work. With the objective of minimizing the payback period, a detailed optimization of internal parameters is performed, including the evaporation temperature, condensation temperature, and pinch point temperature differences in the evaporator and condenser. The influence of external parameters on the payback period is also analyzed and a new criterion of screening working fluids is proposed. 2. Theoretical model In general, a subcritical ORC system consists of an evaporator, a turbine, a condenser, a pump, a cooling fan and a generator. The schematic diagram of the system is shown in Fig. 1(a). The working fluid is pumped to the evaporator and absorbs heat from the flue gas, and then vaporizes into the saturation state vapor. Afterwards, the high pressure saturated vapor flows into the turbine, where the vapor expands and drives the generator to produce electricity. Simultaneously, its enthalpy and pressure decrease. Then, the lowpressure vapor enters into the condenser and is condensed by the cooling air. The T-s diagram of the described processes is shown in Fig. 1(b). The inlet temperature of the flue gas varies from 150 C to 250 C. The environment provides the cooling air temperature of T0 ¼ 20 C [21,22]. The selection of the working fluids is based on the critical parameter and thermodynamic performance of the fluids, as well as the operating conditions [23]. Here, the main selection criterion is the critical temperature of the working fluid. After detailed screening, eleven working fluids are selected for the subcritical ORC system. Their critical parameters are presented in Table 1. The thermodynamic properties of the working fluids are calculated by the software Refprop 8.0 [24]. For simplicity, some assumptions are introduced into the theoretical model: (1) Heat losses and pressure drops in the heat exchangers and pipelines are ignored [21,25]; (2) The working fluid at
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
3
2.1. Evaporator In the evaporator, the working fluid is preheated to its saturation temperature and then vaporized, as shown in Fig. 1. At the boiling section, the heat balance equation is expressed as
Qbo ¼ mwf ðh4 h3 Þ ¼ mg hg;i hg;pp
(1)
The temperature Tg,pp of the flue gas between the preheating section and the boiling section can be determined by the evaporation temperature and pinch point temperature difference
Tg;pp ¼ Te þ DTe
(2)
According to the evaporation temperature Te, the enthalpy of the working fluid can be determined. Therefore, the mass flow rate of the working fluid can be calculated as
mwf ¼
mg cp;g Tg;i Tg;pp
(3)
h4 h3
The heat flow rate in the preheating section of the evaporator is expressed as
Qph ¼ mwf ðh3 h2 Þ ¼ mg hg;pp hg;o
(4)
Therefore, the outlet temperature of the flue gas can be determined by
Tg;o ¼ Tg;pp
mwf ðh3 h2 Þ mg cp;g
(5)
Based on the heat transfer equation of heat exchanger, the heat transfer areas in the preheating section and boiling section can be respectively calculated as
Fig. 1. Schematic diagrams (a) and T-s diagram (b) of a subcritical ORC system.
the turbine inlet and condenser outlet is considered as the saturated vapor and liquid, respectively; (3) Every component in the ORC system operates under steady state; (4) The pinch point temperature differences of the evaporator and condenser are not less than 5 C; (5) Isentropic efficiencies of the expander, pump and fan are 80%, 85% and 85% [26], respectively. Taking the above assumptions into account, the theoretical model on the payback period of the ORC system can be established based on the thermo-economics theory as follows:
Table 1 The critical parameters of the working fluids. Working fluid
M (kg/kmol)
Tcri ( C)
Pcri (MPa)
rcri (kg/m3)
Fluid type
R236fa isobutane R114 R245fa R123 R11 R113 n-hexane methanol heptane cyclohexane
152.04 58.12 170.92 134.05 152.93 137.37 187.38 86.18 32.04 100.20 84.16
124.92 134.66 145.68 154.01 183.68 197.96 214.06 234.67 239.45 266.98 280.49
3.20 3.63 3.26 3.65 3.66 4.41 3.39 3.03 8.10 2.74 4.08
551.04 224.59 720.36 489.31 524.99 554.00 560.00 183.50 275.56 232.00 273.00
isentropic isentropic isentropic isentropic isentropic isentropic isentropic dry wet dry isentropic
Aph ¼
Qph ; Kph DTm;ph
(6a)
Abo ¼
Qbo Kbo DTm;bo
(6b)
where, K is the total heat transfer coefficient of the evaporator, and DTm is the logarithmic mean heat transfer temperature difference.
DTm;ph ¼
DTm;bo ¼
Tg;o T2 DTe ln
Tg;o T2 DTe
;
Tg;i T4 DTe ln
Tg;i T2 DTe
(7a)
(7b)
In general, the convective heat transfer of the working fluid side in the evaporator is much greater than that of the flue gas side. Therefore, the total heat transfer coefficient in the evaporator depends mainly on the convective heat transfer coefficient of the flue gas side [27]. 2.2. Turbine The isentropic efficiency of the turbine is defined by
his;t ¼
h4 h5 h4 h5;s
(8)
where, h5,s is the enthalpy of the working fluid at the outlet of the turbine under the isentropic compression condition.
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
4
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
On the basis of the enthalpy drop, the power output of the turbine can be calculated as
Wt ¼ mwf ðh4 h5 Þ
(9)
2.3. Condenser
Qpc ¼ mwf ðh5 h6 Þ ¼ ma ha;o ha;pp Qco ¼ mwf ðh6 h1 Þ ¼ ma ha;pp ha;i
(10) (11)
The cooling air temperature Ta,pp at the pinch point can be determined by
Ta;pp ¼ Tc DTc
mwf ðh6 h1 Þ cp;a Ta;pp Ta;i
(13)
mwf ðh5 h6 Þ ma cp;a
(14)
The heat transfer areas can be determined by the heat transfer equation
Apc ¼
Qpc ; Kpc DTm;pc
(15a)
Aco ¼
Qco Kco DTm;co
(15b)
where, the logarithmic mean heat transfer temperature difference DTm can be expressed as
DTm;pc ¼
DTm;co ¼
T5 Ta;o DTc ln
T5 Ta;o DTc
T1 Ta;i DTc ln
T1 Ta;i DTc
;
(16a)
(16b)
2.4. Pump The working condition of pump can be determined by the evaporation temperature Te and condensation temperature Tc. The isentropic efficiency is defined by
his;p ¼
h2;s h1 h2 h1
(17)
where, h2,s is the enthalpy of the working fluid at the outlet of the pump under the isentropic compression condition. On the basis of the enthalpy raise, the power input is
Wp ¼ mwf ðh2 h1 Þ
(18)
ma Dp rhf
(19)
where, Dp is the pressure loss of the cooling air in the condenser and the pipeline. Therefore, the net power output of the ORC system is determined by the power output of turbine and the power inputs of the pump and cooling fan,
Wnet ¼ Wt Wp Wf
(20)
On the basis of classical thermodynamics, the thermal efficiency and the exergy efficiency can be determined [28] by
(12)
The mass flow rate and the outlet temperature of the cooling air can be respectively calculated by
Ta;o ¼ Ta;pp
The cooling air is driven by a fan and flows through the condenser where it is heated by the working fluid. The power input can be calculated as
Wf ¼
The condenser is also divided into two sections, precooling and condensing. The heat balance equations in each section of the condenser can be written as
ma ¼
2.5. Air cooling fan
hth ¼
hex ¼
Wnet mg cp;g Tg;i Tg;o
(21)
Wnet T
(22)
g;i mg cp;g Tg;i Tg;o T0 ln Tg;o
To estimate the payback period, the total cost of the ORC system must be determined, which is dominated by the cost of the major components, including the evaporator, turbine, condenser, pump, air cooling fan and generator. The presented theoretical model employs the general correlations [29e33], which are described below. The costs of heat exchangers (evaporator and condenser), fluid machinery (pump and turbine), cooling fan and generator can be calculated by, respectively
lgCp;he ¼ K1;he þ K2;he lgAhe þ K3;he ðlgAhe Þ2
(23)
lgCp;fm ¼ K1;fm þ K2;fm lgWfm þ K3;fm ðlgWfm Þ2
(24)
lgCp;f ¼ K1;f þ K2;f lgQv þ K3;f ðlgQv Þ2
(25)
Cp;eg ¼ 1850000ðWnet =11800Þ0:94
(26)
where Qv is the cooling air flow rate and Wnet is the power output of the generator. In these equations, Cp is a basic cost of the equipment under the assumption of ambient operating pressure and carbon steel construction in the year of 2009. The basic cost should be corrected for the material of construction and the operating pressure as follows
CBM ¼ Cp FBM
(27)
FBM ¼ B1 þ B2 FM Fp
(28)
where CBM is the corrected cost. FM is the correction factor of material. Fp is the correction factor of operating pressure
log Fp ¼ C1 þ C2 log P þ C3 ðlog P Þ2
(29)
In Eqs. 23e29, K1, K2, K3, B1, B2, C1, C2, and C3 are coefficients for cost evaluation of the equipment, which are shown in Table 2.
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
5
The total investment cost consists of six parts,
CBM ¼ CBM;e þ CBM;c þ CBM;t þ CBM;p þ CBM;f þ CBM;eg
(30)
According to the CEPCI (Chemical Engineering Plant Cost Index) values, the cost of the equipment is further converted from the 2009 costs to the 2012 costs.
CBM;2012 ¼ CBM;2009 $CEPCI2012 =CEPCI2009
(31)
where, CEPCI2009 is set as 521.9, CEPCI2012 is set as 584.6 [35]. On the other hand, the annual NE (net earning) of the ORC system is determined by the net power output and the price of electricity
NE ¼ pe Wt Wp Wf top
(32)
where, pe is the price of electricity, top is the operation time as 8000 h/year. Based on the total investment cost and the annual net earning, the static PP (payback period) of the ORC system can be estimated as [20].
PP ¼
CBM NE
(33)
The flow chart of the calculation procedure is shown in Fig. 2. In this model, the input parameters are the working fluid and external parameters, including electricity price, the temperature and mass flow rate of the flue gas, etc. The internal parameters, including the evaporation temperature, condensation temperature and the pinch point temperature differences in the evaporator and condenser, are the variables to be optimized based on the minimum payback period. 3. Results and discussion In order to validate the calculation procedure on the presented model, we carried out performance calculation of the ORC system using the same operating conditions as those reported by Zhang et al. [18], Wang et al. [29] and Xu et al. [36]. The maximum deviations of the thermal efficiency, exergy efficiency, and net power output of the ORC system were found to be about 0.95%, 0.39% and 1.3%, respectively, as shown in Table 3. Therefore, the calculation procedure is sufficiently credible to study the payback period of the ORC system. 3.1. Variation of payback period For a fixed electricity price, a constant flue gas temperature and a given flue gas flow rate, the payback period of the ORC system depends mainly on the evaporation temperature, the condensation temperature, and the pinch point temperature differences in the
Fig. 2. Flow chart of the calculation procedure.
evaporator and condenser. Taking isobutane and heptane as the working fluids, Fig. 3 shows the variation of the payback period with the evaporation temperature Te and the condensation temperature Tc when mg ¼ 10 kg/s and pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h). The payback period of the ORC system initially decreases before increasing with the increase of the evaporation and condensation temperatures. In the ORC system, the enthalpy drop of the working fluid in the turbine is mainly determined by the evaporation temperature. With the increase of the evaporation temperature, the enthalpy drop of the working fluid in the turbine increases. However, the amount of heat transferred in the evaporator decreases, which reduces the mass flow rate of the working fluid. Therefore, the maximum power output of the turbine exists during the increase of the evaporation temperature. Furthermore, the decrease of the mass flow rate of the working fluid yields a decrease of the heat transfer area of the evaporator and the condenser, which leads to a reduction of the cost of the equipment. These comprehensive effects contribute to the variation of the payback period with the
Table 2 The coefficients for cost evaluation [34]. Coefficients
Turbine
Pump
Cooling fan
Evaporator
Condenser
Generator
K1 K2 K3 C1 C2 C3 B1 B2 Fm FBM
2.2476 1.4965 0.1618 / / / / / / 3.5
3.3892 0.0536 0.1538 0.3935 0.3957 0.00226 1.89 1.35 1.5 /
3.1761 0.1373 0.3414 / / / / / / 5
4.3247 0.3030 0.1634 0.03881 0.11272 0.08183 1.63 1.66 1 /
4.0336 0.2341 0.0497 / / / 1.96 1.21 1 /
/ / / / / / / / / 1.5
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
6
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
Table 3 Comparison between the present results and those from Refs. [18,29,36]. Working fluids
R236fa R123 R245fa
Heat source
175 C 90 C 90 C 80 C 146.85 C 90 C
This work
Results from references
hth, %
hex, %
Wnet, kW
hth, %
hex, %
Wnet, kW
11.2 9.6 10.6 5.5 10.3 10.4
44.9 49.7 53.9 33.7 43.2 51.7
94.8 9.3 8.5 7.4 78.7 8.8
11.2 [36] 9.6 [18] 10.5 [18] / 10.3 [29] 10.4 [18]
45.0 49.8 54.1 / / 51.9
95.0 [36] / / 7.5 [29] 78.5 [29] /
[36] [18] [18]
[18]
evaporation temperature. In addition, with the increase of condensation temperature, both the enthalpy drop of the working fluid in the turbine and the heat transfer area of the condenser decrease. Therefore, there is an optimum condensation temperature to minimize the payback period. Fig. 4 shows the variation of the payback period with the pinch point temperature differences in the evaporator and the condenser
at mg ¼ 10 kg/s and pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h). The payback period of the ORC system is indicated to decrease before increasing with the increase of the pinch point temperature differences. A minimum value of the payback period is reached at a specific combination of the pinch point temperature differences. With the increase of the pinch point temperature difference in the evaporator, the mean
Fig. 3. Variation of payback period with evaporation temperature and condensation temperature.
Fig. 4. Variation of payback period with pinch point temperature differences in the evaporator and condenser for isobutane (a) and for heptane (b).
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
heat transfer temperature difference increases significantly, which results in a reduction of the heat transfer area. Therefore, the increase of the pinch point temperature difference in the evaporator has a marked impact on the decrease of the system investment cost, which affects the payback period. However, the increase of the pinch point temperature difference in the evaporator contributes to a reduction of the heat transfer quantity. Thus, the mass flow rate of the working fluid decreases, which leads a decrease of the net power output. When the reduction of the system investment cost is more than that of the net power output, the payback period of system tends to decrease. On the contrary, when the pinch point temperature difference in the evaporator is large enough, the decrease of the system investment cost becomes the smaller one, which leads to the increase of the payback period. With the increase of the pinch point temperature difference of the condenser, the heat transfer area of the condenser decreases. Therefore, the investment cost reduces. Meanwhile, the temperature rise of the cooling air decreases, and then the mass flow rate of cooling air increases, which results in the increase of the power input of the cooling fan. As a result, the payback period fist decreases before increasing with the increase of the pinch point temperature difference of the condenser. 3.2. The optimization of the internal parameters From the above analysis, it was found that there is a set of the optimal values of the evaporation temperature, condensation temperature and the pinch point temperature differences in the evaporator and condenser corresponding to the minimum payback period of the ORC system. Fig. 5 shows the variation of the optimal values with the inlet temperature of the flue gas for the ORC system with isobutane, R245fa, R11 and heptane as the working fluids,
7
respectively, when mg ¼ 10 kg/s and pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h). Obviously, with the increase of the inlet temperature of the flue gas, the optimal evaporation temperature Te,opt initially increases until approaching the critical temperature of the working fluid, and then remains constant. This indicates that the optimal evaporation temperature depends mainly on the critical temperature of the working fluid if the inlet temperature of the flue gas is high enough. Correspondingly, the optimal pinch point temperature difference DTe,opt in the evaporator remains mostly constant before sharply increasing, as shown in Fig. 5(b). The optimal condensation temperature and pinch point temperature difference in the condenser increase with the increase of the inlet temperature of the flue gas. Additionally, when the inlet temperature of the flue gas is approximately 230 C, the optimal evaporation temperature Te,opt of the ORC system with R11 as the working fluid is approximately equal to the critical temperature. Therefore, the working fluid at the turbine outlet is in the liquidevapor coexistent region, which leads to a slight reduction of the optimal pinch point temperature difference DTc,opt in the condenser, as shown in Fig. 5(d). When R245fa and R11 are selected as the working fluid of the ORC system, the optimal parameters (evaporation temperature Te,opt, pinch point temperature difference DTe,opt, and the corresponding temperature Tg,pp,opt of the flue gas between the preheating section and boiling section of the evaporator) varying with the inlet temperature of the flue gas are shown in Fig. 6. Note that there is an inflection point in the variation curves of both the optimal evaporation temperature and the optimal pinch point temperature difference with the inlet temperature of the flue gas. As a result of the increase of the optimal evaporation temperature before the inflection point, the enthalpy drop of the working fluid in the turbine increases, and the net power output of the ORC increases. However, the increase of the optimal evaporation
Fig. 5. Optimal values of the evaporation temperature (a), condensation temperature (c) and the pinch point temperature differences in the evaporator (b) and condenser (d) with the inlet temperature of the flue gas.
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
8
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
Fig. 6. Variations of the optimal evaporation temperature, optimal pinch point temperature difference and corresponding temperature of the flue gas between the preheating section and boiling section of the evaporator with the inlet temperature of the flue gas.
temperature is limited by the critical temperature of the working fluid. At a high inlet temperature of the flue gas, the increase of the system cost plays a greater role on the payback period than the increase of the net power output. As a consequence, there is an obvious increase of the optimal pinch point temperature difference in the evaporator while the optimal evaporation temperature is keeping constant after the inflection point. In addition, the corresponding temperature Tg,pp,opt of the flue gas between the preheating and boiling sections of the evaporator increases linearly except at the inflection point. From Figs. 5 and 6(a) and Table 1, it is noted that the inlet temperature of the flue gas corresponding to the inflection point is always about 20e30 C higher than the critical temperature of the working fluid. The optimal values of the internal parameters are different when different evaluation indicators are used as the objective function. Fig. 7 shows a quantitative comparison of the optimal values of the internal parameters with different objective functions when Tg,i ¼ 200 C. The working fluids are R245fa and R11. The evaluation indicators include the thermal efficiency, the exergy efficiency, the net power output, the LEC (levelized energy cost) [14], and the minimum payback period. The thermal efficiency and exergy efficiency can be improved by increasing the evaporation temperature and decreasing the pinch point temperature difference in the evaporator. However, when the net power output of the ORC is selected as the indicator, the higher evaporation temperature is not always the better. Furthermore, the optimal values with the minimum LEC are similar to those determined using the minimum payback period. When the economics of the ORC system is taken into account, the optimal pinch point temperature differences in the evaporator and condenser clearly increase, because they can decrease the heat transfer area and the system cost. 3.3. The effects of the external parameters The minimum payback period of the ORC system at the optimal internal parameters depends on the external parameters. Fig. 8 shows the variation of the minimum payback period with the inlet temperature of the flue gas at the different mass flow rates of the flue gas when pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h). It is seen that the minimum payback period decreases dramatically with the increase of the inlet temperature of the flue gas, especially when the inlet temperature is low. The higher the inlet temperature of the flue gas, the larger heat transfer quantity in the evaporator, which results in an increase of the mass flow rate of the working fluid. On the other hand, the optimal evaporation temperature also increases with the increase of the inlet temperature of the flue gas.
Fig. 7. Comparison of optimal values of internal parameters with different evaluation indicators.
Therefore, the enthalpy drop of the working fluid in the turbine increases. Due to these two main effects, the power output of the ORC system increase significantly, which leads to a rapid reduction of the minimum payback period. For example, for the ORC system with heptane as the working fluid at mg ¼ 1 kg/s, the minimum payback period at Tg,i ¼ 250 C is 67.4% less than one at Tg,i ¼ 150 C. For the selected four working fluids, heptane yields the longest payback period at Tg,i ¼ 150 C while it shows a better performance at Tg,i ¼ 250 C. Conversely, isobutene has a lower critical temperature than that of heptane. The minimum payback period of the ORC system with isobutane as the working fluid is the shortest at Tg,i ¼ 150 C, but the longest at Tg,i ¼ 250 C. It is suggested that the working fluid with high critical temperature is more applicable to the ORC system when the inlet temperature of the flue gas is high. The influence of the mass flow rate of the flue gas on the minimum payback period at pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h) is presented in
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
9
Fig. 8. Variation of the minimum payback period with the inlet temperature of the flue gas.
Fig. 9. With the increase of the mass flow rate of the flue gas, the heat transfer quantity in the evaporator increases, resulting in the increase of the power output of turbine. Accordingly, the heat transfer area of the heat exchangers increases. Thus, the investment cost also increases. Compared to the increase of power output, the increase of investment cost is smaller, especially when the mass flow rate is low. Therefore, the minimum payback period decreases monotonously with the increase of the mass flow rate of
the flue gas. At low mass flow rate, the minimum payback period significantly decreases. At higher mass flow rate, the decrease in the minimum payback period is less pronounced. For example, when Tg,i is 150 C(Fig. 9(a)),the minimum payback period of the ORC system with R245fa as the working fluid at mg ¼ 1 kg/s is 202.0% larger than one at mg ¼ 10 kg/s, while the minimum payback period at mg ¼ 10 kg/s is only 27.0% larger than one at mg ¼ 20 kg/s.
Fig. 9. Variation of the minimum payback period with the mass flow rate of the flue gas at pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h).
Fig. 10. Variation of the minimum payback period with the electricity prize at mg ¼ 10 kg/s.
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
10
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
Fig. 11. The variation of the minimum payback period with the critical temperature of working fluids at pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h).
Fig. 10 shows the variation of the minimum payback period with the electricity price at mg ¼ 10 kg/s. Eqs. 32 and 33 show that there an inverse relationship between the payback period and the electricity price: the minimum payback period decreases with the
increase of the electricity price. As one of the external parameters, the electricity price has hardly any effect on the thermodynamic performance of the ORC system. Therefore, it has no relation on the screening of the working fluids.
Fig. 12. The minimum payback period and corresponding net power output and thermal efficiency with different working fluids at mg ¼ 10 kg/s and pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h).
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
3.4. The effects of different working fluids Recently, the influence of the critical temperature of the working fluids on the ORC performance has been investigated. Rayegan and Tao [37] found that the higher critical temperature of organic working fluids can allow the solar ORC systems to operate at higher evaporation temperatures and reach higher thermal efficiencies. He et al. [11] calculated the optimal evaporation temperature of a subcritical ORC system when the waste heat source temperature was 150 C. They found that a larger net power output is produced when the critical temperature of the working fluid approaches the inlet temperature of waste heat source. Xu et al. [36] proposed a method to couple the waste heat source with the ORC in order to screen working fluids. As far as the thermal efficiency is concerned, they recommended using working fluids with critical temperatures in the range of [Tg,i(20e30), Tg,i þ 100]. The critical temperature of working fluid also has an important influence on the payback period of ORC system. Fig. 11 shows the variation of the minimum payback period of the ORC system with different working fluids when mg ¼ 10 kg/s and pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h). As previously mentioned, when the inlet temperature of the flue gas is about (20e30) C higher than the critical temperature of the working fluid, the optimal evaporation temperature is limited by the critical temperature. Therefore, when the critical temperature of the working fluid is above Tg,i(20e30) C, the minimum payback period of the ORC system remains approximately constant and is determined by the inlet temperature of the flue gas. When the critical temperature of the working fluid is much lower than the inlet temperature of the flue gas, the optimal pinch point temperature difference in the evaporator is so large that the decrease of the net power output has a greater impact on the minimum payback period than the decrease of the system investment cost. As a result, the minimum payback period decreases with the increase of the critical temperature of working fluids. Therefore, with the objective function of the minimum payback period, using a working fluid that has a critical temperature above Tg,i(20e30) C is recommended. The minimum payback period of the ORC system and the corresponding net power output and thermal efficiency with different working fluids at mg ¼ 10 kg/s and pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h) is represented in Fig. 12. Note that the working fluid with the shortest payback period does not always yield the largest net power output or the highest thermal efficiency. At Tg,i ¼ 150 C, R236fa yields the largest net power output among eleven kinds of working fluids, while all of them provide almost the same payback period, as shown in Fig. 12(a). However, from Fig. 12(b) and (c), it can be seen that R245fa and R113 shows preferable performance in both the payback period and the net power output at Tg,i ¼ 200 C and 250 C, respectively. Therefore, R236fa, R245fa and R113 are recommended as the working fluid of the ORC system when the inlet temperatures of the flue gas are around 150 C, 200 C and 250 C, respectively. 4. Conclusion A theoretical model on the payback period of the ORC system is established, which provides a new evaluation method of the ORC system performance. Based on the minimum payback period, the internal parameters of the ORC system are optimized and the influence of external parameters on the payback period is analyzed. The main conclusions can be summarized as follows: (1) The payback period of the ORC system initially decreases before increasing with the increase of the evaporation
11
temperature, the condensation temperature, and the pinch point temperature differences in the evaporator and condenser. There is a group of optimal internal parameters that minimize the payback period. (2) When the critical temperature of working fluids is above Tg,i(20e30) C, the optimal evaporation temperature, condensation temperature and pinch point temperature difference in the condenser increase monotonously with the increase of the inlet temperature of flue gas, while the optimal pinch point temperature difference in the evaporator remains approximately constant. (3) When the inlet temperature, mass flow rate of the flue gas, and the electricity price increase, the minimum payback period of the ORC system decreases. (4) When the minimum payback period and the net power output are used as two indicators to select the optimum working fluid, R236fa, R245fa and R113 are recommended as the working fluid of the ORC system when the inlet temperatures of the flue gas are around 150 C, 200 C and 250 C, respectively. Acknowledgment This work is supported by National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, Grant No. 2011CB710701). We are grateful to Dr. Aaron H. Persad from University of Toronto for his helpful grammatical edits. References [1] Lecompte S, Huisseune H, Broek MVD, Schampheleire SD, Paepe MD. Part load based thermo-economic optimization of the organic rankine cycle (ORC) applied to a combined heat and power (CHP) system. Appl Energy 2013;111: 871e81. [2] Wang ZQ, Zhou NJ, Guo J, Wang XY. Fluid selection and parametric optimization of organic Rankine cycle using low temperature waste heat. Energy 2012;40:107e15. [3] Schuster A, Karellas S, Kakaras E, Spliethoff H. Energetic and economic investigation of organic Rankine cycle applications. Appl Therm Eng 2009;29: 1809e17. [4] Larjola J. Electricity from industrial waste heat using high-speed organic Rankine cycle (ORC). Int J Prod Econ 1995;41:227e35. [5] Yamamoto T, Furuhata T, Arai N. Design and testing of the organic Rankine Cycle. Energy 2001;26:239e51. [6] Guo J, Xu M, Cheng L. Thermodynamic analysis of waste heat power generation system. Energy 2010;35:2824e35. [7] Wang D, Ling X, Peng H, Liu L, Tao L. Efficiency and optimal performance evaluation of organic Rankine cycle for low grade waste heat power generation. Energy 2013;50:343e52. [8] Quoilin S, Declaye S, Tchanche BF, Lemort V. Thermo-economic optimization of waste heat recovery organic Rankine Cycles. Appl Therm Eng 2011;31: 2885e93. [9] Rashidi MM, Galanis N, Nazari F, Basiri Parsa A, Shamekhi L. Parametric analysis and optimization of regenerative clausius and organic Rankine cycles with two feedwater heaters using artificial bees colony and artificial neural network. Energy 2011;36:5728e40. [10] Heberle F, Bruggemann D. Exergy based fluid selection for a geothermal organic Rankine cycle for combined heat and power generation. Appl Therm Energy 2010;30:1326e32. [11] He C, Liu C, Gao H, Xie H, Li YR, Wu SY. The optimal evaporation temperature and working fluids for subcritical organic Rankine cycle. Energy 2012;38:136e43. [12] Dai Y, Wang J, Gao L. Parametric optimization and comparative study of organic Rankine cycle (ORC) for low grade waste heat recovery. Energy Convers Manag 2009;50:576e82. [13] Guo T, Wang HX, Zhang SJ. Fluids and parameters optimization for a novel cogeneration system driven by low-temperature geothermal sources. Energy 2011;36:2639e49. [14] Hettiarachchia HDM, Golubovica M, Woreka WM. Optimum design criteria for an organic Rankine cycle using low-temperature geothermal heat sources. Energy 2007;32:1698e706. [15] Li YR, Wang JN, Du MT, Wu SY, Liu C, Xu JL. Effect of pinch point temperature difference on cost-effective performance of organic Rankine cycle. Int J Energy Res 2013;37:1952e62. [16] Li YR, Du MT, Wu CM, Wu SY, Liu C, Xu JL. Economical evaluation and optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle based on temperature matching analysis. Energy 2014;68:238e47.
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
12
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
[17] Li YR, Du MT, Wu CM, Wu SY, Liu C. Potential analysis on organic Rankine cycle with mixture working fluids for waste heat recovery. Energy 2014;77: 509e19. [18] Zhang SJ, Wang HX, Guo T. Performance comparison and parametric optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and transcritical power cycle system for low-temperature geothermal power generation. Appl Energy 2011;88:2740e54. [19] Shu GQ, Yu GP, Tian H, Wei HQ, Liang XG. A multi-approach evaluation system (MA-ES) of organic rankine cycles (ORC) used in waste heat utilization. Appl Energy 2014;132:325e38. [20] Taylor GA. Managerial and engineering economy, vol. 183e5. New York: D Van Nostrand Company; 1980. p. 381e2. 357e61. [21] Dai YP, Wang JF, Gao L. Exergy analysis, parametric analysis and optimization for a novel combined power and ejector refrigeration cycle. Appl Therm Eng 2009;29:1983e90. [22] Sun J, Li WH. Operation optimization of an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) heat recovery power plant. Appl Therm Eng 2011;31:2032e41. [23] Liu B, Riviere P, Coquelet C, Gicquel R, David F. Investigation of a two stage Rankine cycle for electric power plants. Appl Energy 2012;100: 285e94. [24] REFPROP Version 8.0. NIST standard reference database 23. 2007. [25] Heberle F, Preißinger M, Brüggemann D. Zeotropic mixtures as working fluids in organic Rankine cycles for low-enthalpy geothermal resources. Renew Energy 2012;37:364e70. [26] Mago PJ, Chamra LM, Srinivasan K, Somayaji C. An examination of regenerative organic Rankine cycles using dry fluids. Appl Therm Eng 2008;28: 998e1007. [27] Little AB, Garimella S. Comparative assessment of alternative cycles for waste heat recovery and upgrade. Energy 2011;36:4492e504.
[28] Le VL, Feidt M, Kheiri A, Pelloux-Prayer S. Performance optimization of lowtemperature power generation by supercritical ORCs (organic Rankine cycles) using low GWP (global warming potential) working fluids. Energy 2014;67:513e26. [29] Wang DX, Ling X, Peng H. Cost-effectiveness performance analysis of organic Rankine cycle for low grade heat utilization coupling with operation condition. Appl Therm Eng 2013;58:571e84. [30] Zhou NJ, Wang XY, Chen Z, Wang ZQ. Experimental study on organic Rankine cycle for waste heat recovery from low-temperature flue gas. Energy 2013;55: 216e25. [31] Yamada N, Minami T, Anuar Mohamad MN. Fundamental experiment of pumpless Rankine-type cycle for low-temperature heat recovery. Energy 2011;36:1010e7. [32] Wang H, Peterson R, Herron T. Design study of configurations on system COP for a combined ORC (organic Rankine cycle) and VCC (vapor compression cycle). Energy 2011;36:4809e20. [33] Li W, Feng X, Yu LJ, Xu J. Effects of evaporating temperature and internal heat exchanger on organic Rankine cycle. Appl Therm Eng 2011;31: 4014e23. [34] Turton R, Bailie RC, Whiting WB, Shaeiwitz JA. Analysis, synthesis and design of chemical processes. 3rd ed. Boston: Prentice Hall; 2009. [35] Toffolo A, Lazzaretto A, Manente G, Paci M. A multi-criteria approach for the optimal selection of working fluid and design parameters in organic Rankine cycle systems. Appl Energy 2014;121:219e32. [36] Xu JL, Yu C. Critical temperature criterion for selection of working fluids for subcritical pressure organic Rankine cycles. Energy 2014;74:719e33. [37] Rayegan R, Tao YX. A procedure to select working fluids for solar organic Rankine cycles (ORCs). Renew Energy 2011;36:659e70.
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Energy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy
Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery Xiao-Qiong Wang, Xiao-Ping Li, You-Rong Li*, Chun-Mei Wu Key Laboratory of Low-grade Energy Utilization Technologies and Systems of Ministry of Education, College of Power Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Received 18 January 2015 Received in revised form 27 April 2015 Accepted 12 May 2015 Available online xxx
This paper presents a theoretical model on the payback period of a subcritical ORC (organic Rankine cycle) system for recovering low-grade waste heat of flue gas. Based on the minimum payback period principle, a detailed internal parameter optimization is carried out. Furthermore, the influences of external parameters on the payback period are analyzed and a new criterion of screening working fluids is proposed. Results show that the payback period of the ORC system decreases before increasing with the increase of evaporation temperature, condensation temperature, and the pinch point temperature differences in the evaporator and condenser. The minimum payback period of the ORC system decreases monotonously with the increase of the inlet temperature, mass flow rate of the flue gas, and the electricity price. When the minimum payback period and the net power output are used as indicators of selecting working fluids of the ORC system, this work identifies a specific working fluid for a given inlet flue gas temperature. We demonstrate this process by showing that R236a, R245fa, and R113 should be selected as the working fluids when the inlet temperatures of the flue gas are around 150 C, 200 C and 250 C, respectively. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Organic Rankine cycle Payback period Waste heat recovery Parameter optimization Working fluids
1. Introduction During the past century, there has been a dramatic increase of energy consumption, due in part to the rapid growth of the world population and the increase of development of industrial activity. The issue of meeting the global energy demand in the face of natural resources shortage provides a strong incentive to recover the low-grade waste heat. It has been found that more than 50% total heat generated in the industry is the low-grade waste heat, where temperatures are in the range of 100e220 C [1,2]. The ORC (organic Rankine cycle) is a promising technology that can effectively convert the low-grade waste heat into electricity [3e5]. The ORC technology has attracted increasing attention because of its simple construction, flexibility, low operation cost and high recovery efficiency. Studies of parameter optimization, working fluid selection, performance evaluation, and many other variables of the ORC system have been performed by numerous investigators [6e8]. Among current evaluation systems, there are three main
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ86 23 65112284. E-mail address: [email protected] (Y.-R. Li).
categories: basic energy analysis, exergy analysis and thermoeconomic assessment. Rashidi et al. [9] performed a parametric optimization of a regenerative ORC using thermal efficiency, exergy efficiency and specific work as objective functions. It was found that the maximum values of the objective functions for R717 as the working fluid are greater than those for water. Heberle et al. [10] added a heat production term to the ORC and modeled their system as series and parallel circuits. In the series circuits model, based on the second law analysis, it was concluded that the working fluid with high critical temperature, such as isopentane, is suitable for the ORC. Fluids with low critical temperature, such as isobutane and R227ea, should be favored in the parallel circuits and power generation. With the net power output as an objective function, He et al. [11] proposed a theoretical formula on the optimal evaporation temperature in subcritical ORC system. It was found that there is a 25% difference in the maximum net power outputs of twentytwo working fluids at the same conditions. When the critical temperature of the working fluid approaches the inlet temperature of the low-grade waste heat source, the net power output exhibits the largest value. Dai et al. [12] compared and analyzed the ORC system performance with ten pure working fluids under the same waste heat condition with the exergy efficiency as an objective
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095 0360-5442/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
2
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
Nomenclature A C CBM CEPCI COM Cp h K M m NE P pe PP Q T W
heat transfer area, m2 cost, $ bare module cost, $ chemical engineering's plant cost index cost of operation and maintenance, $ purchased cost, $ specific enthalpy, kJ/kg heat transfer coefficient, W/(m2$K) molecular weight, kg/kmol mass flow rate, kg/s net earning per year, $/year pressure, Pa price of electricity, $/(kW$h) payback period, year heat flow rate, W temperature, C power output or input, kW
Subscripts a air c condenser cri critical e evaporator eg electrical generator ex exergy f cooling fan fm fluid machinery g flue gas he heat exchanger i inlet is isentropic o outlet opt optimal p pump pp pinch point t turbine th thermal wf working fluid
Greek symbols h efficiency
function. The results showed that the ORC with R236EA as the working fluid has the highest exergy efficiency, and adding an internal heat exchanger into the ORC system does not improve the performance under the given waste heat condition. Additional thermoeconomic criteria have also been applied in the performance evaluation of the ORC system. Guo et al. [13], Hettiarachchi et al. [14] and Li et al. [15e17] carried out the performance analysis and parametric optimization on subcritical ORC systems for the recovery of the low-grade waste heat. They used several different screening criteria, including the net power output per unit mass flow rate of hot source, the ratio of the net power output to heat transfer area, and the electricity production cost. Their analysis indicated that a set of the optimum evaporation temperature and pinch point temperature differences of heat exchangers would maximize the net power output. However, the optimum parameter values depend on the used screening criteria. Zhang et al. [18] used up to five indicators to select the optimum working fluid and optimize the operation parameters. They are thermal efficiency, exergy efficiency, recovery efficiency, heat exchanger area per unit power output, and the levelized energy cost. The results showed that the optimal working fluid and the optimal values of the operation parameters are not all the same for different indicators. Furthermore, Shu et al. [19] established a multi-approach evaluation system to provide comprehensive evaluations on the ORC systems used in the low-grade waste heat recovery. The evaluation system covers three aspects: basic evaluations of energy distribution and system efficiency, evaluations of exergy distribution and exergy efficiency, and economic evaluations. Two typical ORC systems were used to illustrate the evaluation system for recovering low-grade waste heat. It was shown that this system provides a general method of ORC performance evaluation. The payback period of the ORC system is another important economical criterion in the commercial production of electricity [20]. It is the most direct indicator to reveal the exact period before the ORC system can make a net profit. Furthermore, the way to shorten the payback period is also effective to improve performance of the ORC system. It is significant to make estimation for the payback period of the ORC system and to optimize the
operating parameters based on the criterion of the minimum payback period. However, there are only a few investigations on the payback period of the ORC system. Therefore, a theoretical model on the payback period of the ORC system for recovering low-grade waste heat of flue gas from industrial boiler is presented in this work. With the objective of minimizing the payback period, a detailed optimization of internal parameters is performed, including the evaporation temperature, condensation temperature, and pinch point temperature differences in the evaporator and condenser. The influence of external parameters on the payback period is also analyzed and a new criterion of screening working fluids is proposed. 2. Theoretical model In general, a subcritical ORC system consists of an evaporator, a turbine, a condenser, a pump, a cooling fan and a generator. The schematic diagram of the system is shown in Fig. 1(a). The working fluid is pumped to the evaporator and absorbs heat from the flue gas, and then vaporizes into the saturation state vapor. Afterwards, the high pressure saturated vapor flows into the turbine, where the vapor expands and drives the generator to produce electricity. Simultaneously, its enthalpy and pressure decrease. Then, the lowpressure vapor enters into the condenser and is condensed by the cooling air. The T-s diagram of the described processes is shown in Fig. 1(b). The inlet temperature of the flue gas varies from 150 C to 250 C. The environment provides the cooling air temperature of T0 ¼ 20 C [21,22]. The selection of the working fluids is based on the critical parameter and thermodynamic performance of the fluids, as well as the operating conditions [23]. Here, the main selection criterion is the critical temperature of the working fluid. After detailed screening, eleven working fluids are selected for the subcritical ORC system. Their critical parameters are presented in Table 1. The thermodynamic properties of the working fluids are calculated by the software Refprop 8.0 [24]. For simplicity, some assumptions are introduced into the theoretical model: (1) Heat losses and pressure drops in the heat exchangers and pipelines are ignored [21,25]; (2) The working fluid at
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
3
2.1. Evaporator In the evaporator, the working fluid is preheated to its saturation temperature and then vaporized, as shown in Fig. 1. At the boiling section, the heat balance equation is expressed as
Qbo ¼ mwf ðh4 h3 Þ ¼ mg hg;i hg;pp
(1)
The temperature Tg,pp of the flue gas between the preheating section and the boiling section can be determined by the evaporation temperature and pinch point temperature difference
Tg;pp ¼ Te þ DTe
(2)
According to the evaporation temperature Te, the enthalpy of the working fluid can be determined. Therefore, the mass flow rate of the working fluid can be calculated as
mwf ¼
mg cp;g Tg;i Tg;pp
(3)
h4 h3
The heat flow rate in the preheating section of the evaporator is expressed as
Qph ¼ mwf ðh3 h2 Þ ¼ mg hg;pp hg;o
(4)
Therefore, the outlet temperature of the flue gas can be determined by
Tg;o ¼ Tg;pp
mwf ðh3 h2 Þ mg cp;g
(5)
Based on the heat transfer equation of heat exchanger, the heat transfer areas in the preheating section and boiling section can be respectively calculated as
Fig. 1. Schematic diagrams (a) and T-s diagram (b) of a subcritical ORC system.
the turbine inlet and condenser outlet is considered as the saturated vapor and liquid, respectively; (3) Every component in the ORC system operates under steady state; (4) The pinch point temperature differences of the evaporator and condenser are not less than 5 C; (5) Isentropic efficiencies of the expander, pump and fan are 80%, 85% and 85% [26], respectively. Taking the above assumptions into account, the theoretical model on the payback period of the ORC system can be established based on the thermo-economics theory as follows:
Table 1 The critical parameters of the working fluids. Working fluid
M (kg/kmol)
Tcri ( C)
Pcri (MPa)
rcri (kg/m3)
Fluid type
R236fa isobutane R114 R245fa R123 R11 R113 n-hexane methanol heptane cyclohexane
152.04 58.12 170.92 134.05 152.93 137.37 187.38 86.18 32.04 100.20 84.16
124.92 134.66 145.68 154.01 183.68 197.96 214.06 234.67 239.45 266.98 280.49
3.20 3.63 3.26 3.65 3.66 4.41 3.39 3.03 8.10 2.74 4.08
551.04 224.59 720.36 489.31 524.99 554.00 560.00 183.50 275.56 232.00 273.00
isentropic isentropic isentropic isentropic isentropic isentropic isentropic dry wet dry isentropic
Aph ¼
Qph ; Kph DTm;ph
(6a)
Abo ¼
Qbo Kbo DTm;bo
(6b)
where, K is the total heat transfer coefficient of the evaporator, and DTm is the logarithmic mean heat transfer temperature difference.
DTm;ph ¼
DTm;bo ¼
Tg;o T2 DTe ln
Tg;o T2 DTe
;
Tg;i T4 DTe ln
Tg;i T2 DTe
(7a)
(7b)
In general, the convective heat transfer of the working fluid side in the evaporator is much greater than that of the flue gas side. Therefore, the total heat transfer coefficient in the evaporator depends mainly on the convective heat transfer coefficient of the flue gas side [27]. 2.2. Turbine The isentropic efficiency of the turbine is defined by
his;t ¼
h4 h5 h4 h5;s
(8)
where, h5,s is the enthalpy of the working fluid at the outlet of the turbine under the isentropic compression condition.
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
4
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
On the basis of the enthalpy drop, the power output of the turbine can be calculated as
Wt ¼ mwf ðh4 h5 Þ
(9)
2.3. Condenser
Qpc ¼ mwf ðh5 h6 Þ ¼ ma ha;o ha;pp Qco ¼ mwf ðh6 h1 Þ ¼ ma ha;pp ha;i
(10) (11)
The cooling air temperature Ta,pp at the pinch point can be determined by
Ta;pp ¼ Tc DTc
mwf ðh6 h1 Þ cp;a Ta;pp Ta;i
(13)
mwf ðh5 h6 Þ ma cp;a
(14)
The heat transfer areas can be determined by the heat transfer equation
Apc ¼
Qpc ; Kpc DTm;pc
(15a)
Aco ¼
Qco Kco DTm;co
(15b)
where, the logarithmic mean heat transfer temperature difference DTm can be expressed as
DTm;pc ¼
DTm;co ¼
T5 Ta;o DTc ln
T5 Ta;o DTc
T1 Ta;i DTc ln
T1 Ta;i DTc
;
(16a)
(16b)
2.4. Pump The working condition of pump can be determined by the evaporation temperature Te and condensation temperature Tc. The isentropic efficiency is defined by
his;p ¼
h2;s h1 h2 h1
(17)
where, h2,s is the enthalpy of the working fluid at the outlet of the pump under the isentropic compression condition. On the basis of the enthalpy raise, the power input is
Wp ¼ mwf ðh2 h1 Þ
(18)
ma Dp rhf
(19)
where, Dp is the pressure loss of the cooling air in the condenser and the pipeline. Therefore, the net power output of the ORC system is determined by the power output of turbine and the power inputs of the pump and cooling fan,
Wnet ¼ Wt Wp Wf
(20)
On the basis of classical thermodynamics, the thermal efficiency and the exergy efficiency can be determined [28] by
(12)
The mass flow rate and the outlet temperature of the cooling air can be respectively calculated by
Ta;o ¼ Ta;pp
The cooling air is driven by a fan and flows through the condenser where it is heated by the working fluid. The power input can be calculated as
Wf ¼
The condenser is also divided into two sections, precooling and condensing. The heat balance equations in each section of the condenser can be written as
ma ¼
2.5. Air cooling fan
hth ¼
hex ¼
Wnet mg cp;g Tg;i Tg;o
(21)
Wnet T
(22)
g;i mg cp;g Tg;i Tg;o T0 ln Tg;o
To estimate the payback period, the total cost of the ORC system must be determined, which is dominated by the cost of the major components, including the evaporator, turbine, condenser, pump, air cooling fan and generator. The presented theoretical model employs the general correlations [29e33], which are described below. The costs of heat exchangers (evaporator and condenser), fluid machinery (pump and turbine), cooling fan and generator can be calculated by, respectively
lgCp;he ¼ K1;he þ K2;he lgAhe þ K3;he ðlgAhe Þ2
(23)
lgCp;fm ¼ K1;fm þ K2;fm lgWfm þ K3;fm ðlgWfm Þ2
(24)
lgCp;f ¼ K1;f þ K2;f lgQv þ K3;f ðlgQv Þ2
(25)
Cp;eg ¼ 1850000ðWnet =11800Þ0:94
(26)
where Qv is the cooling air flow rate and Wnet is the power output of the generator. In these equations, Cp is a basic cost of the equipment under the assumption of ambient operating pressure and carbon steel construction in the year of 2009. The basic cost should be corrected for the material of construction and the operating pressure as follows
CBM ¼ Cp FBM
(27)
FBM ¼ B1 þ B2 FM Fp
(28)
where CBM is the corrected cost. FM is the correction factor of material. Fp is the correction factor of operating pressure
log Fp ¼ C1 þ C2 log P þ C3 ðlog P Þ2
(29)
In Eqs. 23e29, K1, K2, K3, B1, B2, C1, C2, and C3 are coefficients for cost evaluation of the equipment, which are shown in Table 2.
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
5
The total investment cost consists of six parts,
CBM ¼ CBM;e þ CBM;c þ CBM;t þ CBM;p þ CBM;f þ CBM;eg
(30)
According to the CEPCI (Chemical Engineering Plant Cost Index) values, the cost of the equipment is further converted from the 2009 costs to the 2012 costs.
CBM;2012 ¼ CBM;2009 $CEPCI2012 =CEPCI2009
(31)
where, CEPCI2009 is set as 521.9, CEPCI2012 is set as 584.6 [35]. On the other hand, the annual NE (net earning) of the ORC system is determined by the net power output and the price of electricity
NE ¼ pe Wt Wp Wf top
(32)
where, pe is the price of electricity, top is the operation time as 8000 h/year. Based on the total investment cost and the annual net earning, the static PP (payback period) of the ORC system can be estimated as [20].
PP ¼
CBM NE
(33)
The flow chart of the calculation procedure is shown in Fig. 2. In this model, the input parameters are the working fluid and external parameters, including electricity price, the temperature and mass flow rate of the flue gas, etc. The internal parameters, including the evaporation temperature, condensation temperature and the pinch point temperature differences in the evaporator and condenser, are the variables to be optimized based on the minimum payback period. 3. Results and discussion In order to validate the calculation procedure on the presented model, we carried out performance calculation of the ORC system using the same operating conditions as those reported by Zhang et al. [18], Wang et al. [29] and Xu et al. [36]. The maximum deviations of the thermal efficiency, exergy efficiency, and net power output of the ORC system were found to be about 0.95%, 0.39% and 1.3%, respectively, as shown in Table 3. Therefore, the calculation procedure is sufficiently credible to study the payback period of the ORC system. 3.1. Variation of payback period For a fixed electricity price, a constant flue gas temperature and a given flue gas flow rate, the payback period of the ORC system depends mainly on the evaporation temperature, the condensation temperature, and the pinch point temperature differences in the
Fig. 2. Flow chart of the calculation procedure.
evaporator and condenser. Taking isobutane and heptane as the working fluids, Fig. 3 shows the variation of the payback period with the evaporation temperature Te and the condensation temperature Tc when mg ¼ 10 kg/s and pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h). The payback period of the ORC system initially decreases before increasing with the increase of the evaporation and condensation temperatures. In the ORC system, the enthalpy drop of the working fluid in the turbine is mainly determined by the evaporation temperature. With the increase of the evaporation temperature, the enthalpy drop of the working fluid in the turbine increases. However, the amount of heat transferred in the evaporator decreases, which reduces the mass flow rate of the working fluid. Therefore, the maximum power output of the turbine exists during the increase of the evaporation temperature. Furthermore, the decrease of the mass flow rate of the working fluid yields a decrease of the heat transfer area of the evaporator and the condenser, which leads to a reduction of the cost of the equipment. These comprehensive effects contribute to the variation of the payback period with the
Table 2 The coefficients for cost evaluation [34]. Coefficients
Turbine
Pump
Cooling fan
Evaporator
Condenser
Generator
K1 K2 K3 C1 C2 C3 B1 B2 Fm FBM
2.2476 1.4965 0.1618 / / / / / / 3.5
3.3892 0.0536 0.1538 0.3935 0.3957 0.00226 1.89 1.35 1.5 /
3.1761 0.1373 0.3414 / / / / / / 5
4.3247 0.3030 0.1634 0.03881 0.11272 0.08183 1.63 1.66 1 /
4.0336 0.2341 0.0497 / / / 1.96 1.21 1 /
/ / / / / / / / / 1.5
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
6
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
Table 3 Comparison between the present results and those from Refs. [18,29,36]. Working fluids
R236fa R123 R245fa
Heat source
175 C 90 C 90 C 80 C 146.85 C 90 C
This work
Results from references
hth, %
hex, %
Wnet, kW
hth, %
hex, %
Wnet, kW
11.2 9.6 10.6 5.5 10.3 10.4
44.9 49.7 53.9 33.7 43.2 51.7
94.8 9.3 8.5 7.4 78.7 8.8
11.2 [36] 9.6 [18] 10.5 [18] / 10.3 [29] 10.4 [18]
45.0 49.8 54.1 / / 51.9
95.0 [36] / / 7.5 [29] 78.5 [29] /
[36] [18] [18]
[18]
evaporation temperature. In addition, with the increase of condensation temperature, both the enthalpy drop of the working fluid in the turbine and the heat transfer area of the condenser decrease. Therefore, there is an optimum condensation temperature to minimize the payback period. Fig. 4 shows the variation of the payback period with the pinch point temperature differences in the evaporator and the condenser
at mg ¼ 10 kg/s and pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h). The payback period of the ORC system is indicated to decrease before increasing with the increase of the pinch point temperature differences. A minimum value of the payback period is reached at a specific combination of the pinch point temperature differences. With the increase of the pinch point temperature difference in the evaporator, the mean
Fig. 3. Variation of payback period with evaporation temperature and condensation temperature.
Fig. 4. Variation of payback period with pinch point temperature differences in the evaporator and condenser for isobutane (a) and for heptane (b).
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
heat transfer temperature difference increases significantly, which results in a reduction of the heat transfer area. Therefore, the increase of the pinch point temperature difference in the evaporator has a marked impact on the decrease of the system investment cost, which affects the payback period. However, the increase of the pinch point temperature difference in the evaporator contributes to a reduction of the heat transfer quantity. Thus, the mass flow rate of the working fluid decreases, which leads a decrease of the net power output. When the reduction of the system investment cost is more than that of the net power output, the payback period of system tends to decrease. On the contrary, when the pinch point temperature difference in the evaporator is large enough, the decrease of the system investment cost becomes the smaller one, which leads to the increase of the payback period. With the increase of the pinch point temperature difference of the condenser, the heat transfer area of the condenser decreases. Therefore, the investment cost reduces. Meanwhile, the temperature rise of the cooling air decreases, and then the mass flow rate of cooling air increases, which results in the increase of the power input of the cooling fan. As a result, the payback period fist decreases before increasing with the increase of the pinch point temperature difference of the condenser. 3.2. The optimization of the internal parameters From the above analysis, it was found that there is a set of the optimal values of the evaporation temperature, condensation temperature and the pinch point temperature differences in the evaporator and condenser corresponding to the minimum payback period of the ORC system. Fig. 5 shows the variation of the optimal values with the inlet temperature of the flue gas for the ORC system with isobutane, R245fa, R11 and heptane as the working fluids,
7
respectively, when mg ¼ 10 kg/s and pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h). Obviously, with the increase of the inlet temperature of the flue gas, the optimal evaporation temperature Te,opt initially increases until approaching the critical temperature of the working fluid, and then remains constant. This indicates that the optimal evaporation temperature depends mainly on the critical temperature of the working fluid if the inlet temperature of the flue gas is high enough. Correspondingly, the optimal pinch point temperature difference DTe,opt in the evaporator remains mostly constant before sharply increasing, as shown in Fig. 5(b). The optimal condensation temperature and pinch point temperature difference in the condenser increase with the increase of the inlet temperature of the flue gas. Additionally, when the inlet temperature of the flue gas is approximately 230 C, the optimal evaporation temperature Te,opt of the ORC system with R11 as the working fluid is approximately equal to the critical temperature. Therefore, the working fluid at the turbine outlet is in the liquidevapor coexistent region, which leads to a slight reduction of the optimal pinch point temperature difference DTc,opt in the condenser, as shown in Fig. 5(d). When R245fa and R11 are selected as the working fluid of the ORC system, the optimal parameters (evaporation temperature Te,opt, pinch point temperature difference DTe,opt, and the corresponding temperature Tg,pp,opt of the flue gas between the preheating section and boiling section of the evaporator) varying with the inlet temperature of the flue gas are shown in Fig. 6. Note that there is an inflection point in the variation curves of both the optimal evaporation temperature and the optimal pinch point temperature difference with the inlet temperature of the flue gas. As a result of the increase of the optimal evaporation temperature before the inflection point, the enthalpy drop of the working fluid in the turbine increases, and the net power output of the ORC increases. However, the increase of the optimal evaporation
Fig. 5. Optimal values of the evaporation temperature (a), condensation temperature (c) and the pinch point temperature differences in the evaporator (b) and condenser (d) with the inlet temperature of the flue gas.
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
8
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
Fig. 6. Variations of the optimal evaporation temperature, optimal pinch point temperature difference and corresponding temperature of the flue gas between the preheating section and boiling section of the evaporator with the inlet temperature of the flue gas.
temperature is limited by the critical temperature of the working fluid. At a high inlet temperature of the flue gas, the increase of the system cost plays a greater role on the payback period than the increase of the net power output. As a consequence, there is an obvious increase of the optimal pinch point temperature difference in the evaporator while the optimal evaporation temperature is keeping constant after the inflection point. In addition, the corresponding temperature Tg,pp,opt of the flue gas between the preheating and boiling sections of the evaporator increases linearly except at the inflection point. From Figs. 5 and 6(a) and Table 1, it is noted that the inlet temperature of the flue gas corresponding to the inflection point is always about 20e30 C higher than the critical temperature of the working fluid. The optimal values of the internal parameters are different when different evaluation indicators are used as the objective function. Fig. 7 shows a quantitative comparison of the optimal values of the internal parameters with different objective functions when Tg,i ¼ 200 C. The working fluids are R245fa and R11. The evaluation indicators include the thermal efficiency, the exergy efficiency, the net power output, the LEC (levelized energy cost) [14], and the minimum payback period. The thermal efficiency and exergy efficiency can be improved by increasing the evaporation temperature and decreasing the pinch point temperature difference in the evaporator. However, when the net power output of the ORC is selected as the indicator, the higher evaporation temperature is not always the better. Furthermore, the optimal values with the minimum LEC are similar to those determined using the minimum payback period. When the economics of the ORC system is taken into account, the optimal pinch point temperature differences in the evaporator and condenser clearly increase, because they can decrease the heat transfer area and the system cost. 3.3. The effects of the external parameters The minimum payback period of the ORC system at the optimal internal parameters depends on the external parameters. Fig. 8 shows the variation of the minimum payback period with the inlet temperature of the flue gas at the different mass flow rates of the flue gas when pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h). It is seen that the minimum payback period decreases dramatically with the increase of the inlet temperature of the flue gas, especially when the inlet temperature is low. The higher the inlet temperature of the flue gas, the larger heat transfer quantity in the evaporator, which results in an increase of the mass flow rate of the working fluid. On the other hand, the optimal evaporation temperature also increases with the increase of the inlet temperature of the flue gas.
Fig. 7. Comparison of optimal values of internal parameters with different evaluation indicators.
Therefore, the enthalpy drop of the working fluid in the turbine increases. Due to these two main effects, the power output of the ORC system increase significantly, which leads to a rapid reduction of the minimum payback period. For example, for the ORC system with heptane as the working fluid at mg ¼ 1 kg/s, the minimum payback period at Tg,i ¼ 250 C is 67.4% less than one at Tg,i ¼ 150 C. For the selected four working fluids, heptane yields the longest payback period at Tg,i ¼ 150 C while it shows a better performance at Tg,i ¼ 250 C. Conversely, isobutene has a lower critical temperature than that of heptane. The minimum payback period of the ORC system with isobutane as the working fluid is the shortest at Tg,i ¼ 150 C, but the longest at Tg,i ¼ 250 C. It is suggested that the working fluid with high critical temperature is more applicable to the ORC system when the inlet temperature of the flue gas is high. The influence of the mass flow rate of the flue gas on the minimum payback period at pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h) is presented in
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
9
Fig. 8. Variation of the minimum payback period with the inlet temperature of the flue gas.
Fig. 9. With the increase of the mass flow rate of the flue gas, the heat transfer quantity in the evaporator increases, resulting in the increase of the power output of turbine. Accordingly, the heat transfer area of the heat exchangers increases. Thus, the investment cost also increases. Compared to the increase of power output, the increase of investment cost is smaller, especially when the mass flow rate is low. Therefore, the minimum payback period decreases monotonously with the increase of the mass flow rate of
the flue gas. At low mass flow rate, the minimum payback period significantly decreases. At higher mass flow rate, the decrease in the minimum payback period is less pronounced. For example, when Tg,i is 150 C(Fig. 9(a)),the minimum payback period of the ORC system with R245fa as the working fluid at mg ¼ 1 kg/s is 202.0% larger than one at mg ¼ 10 kg/s, while the minimum payback period at mg ¼ 10 kg/s is only 27.0% larger than one at mg ¼ 20 kg/s.
Fig. 9. Variation of the minimum payback period with the mass flow rate of the flue gas at pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h).
Fig. 10. Variation of the minimum payback period with the electricity prize at mg ¼ 10 kg/s.
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
10
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
Fig. 11. The variation of the minimum payback period with the critical temperature of working fluids at pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h).
Fig. 10 shows the variation of the minimum payback period with the electricity price at mg ¼ 10 kg/s. Eqs. 32 and 33 show that there an inverse relationship between the payback period and the electricity price: the minimum payback period decreases with the
increase of the electricity price. As one of the external parameters, the electricity price has hardly any effect on the thermodynamic performance of the ORC system. Therefore, it has no relation on the screening of the working fluids.
Fig. 12. The minimum payback period and corresponding net power output and thermal efficiency with different working fluids at mg ¼ 10 kg/s and pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h).
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
3.4. The effects of different working fluids Recently, the influence of the critical temperature of the working fluids on the ORC performance has been investigated. Rayegan and Tao [37] found that the higher critical temperature of organic working fluids can allow the solar ORC systems to operate at higher evaporation temperatures and reach higher thermal efficiencies. He et al. [11] calculated the optimal evaporation temperature of a subcritical ORC system when the waste heat source temperature was 150 C. They found that a larger net power output is produced when the critical temperature of the working fluid approaches the inlet temperature of waste heat source. Xu et al. [36] proposed a method to couple the waste heat source with the ORC in order to screen working fluids. As far as the thermal efficiency is concerned, they recommended using working fluids with critical temperatures in the range of [Tg,i(20e30), Tg,i þ 100]. The critical temperature of working fluid also has an important influence on the payback period of ORC system. Fig. 11 shows the variation of the minimum payback period of the ORC system with different working fluids when mg ¼ 10 kg/s and pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h). As previously mentioned, when the inlet temperature of the flue gas is about (20e30) C higher than the critical temperature of the working fluid, the optimal evaporation temperature is limited by the critical temperature. Therefore, when the critical temperature of the working fluid is above Tg,i(20e30) C, the minimum payback period of the ORC system remains approximately constant and is determined by the inlet temperature of the flue gas. When the critical temperature of the working fluid is much lower than the inlet temperature of the flue gas, the optimal pinch point temperature difference in the evaporator is so large that the decrease of the net power output has a greater impact on the minimum payback period than the decrease of the system investment cost. As a result, the minimum payback period decreases with the increase of the critical temperature of working fluids. Therefore, with the objective function of the minimum payback period, using a working fluid that has a critical temperature above Tg,i(20e30) C is recommended. The minimum payback period of the ORC system and the corresponding net power output and thermal efficiency with different working fluids at mg ¼ 10 kg/s and pe ¼ 0.1 $/(kW h) is represented in Fig. 12. Note that the working fluid with the shortest payback period does not always yield the largest net power output or the highest thermal efficiency. At Tg,i ¼ 150 C, R236fa yields the largest net power output among eleven kinds of working fluids, while all of them provide almost the same payback period, as shown in Fig. 12(a). However, from Fig. 12(b) and (c), it can be seen that R245fa and R113 shows preferable performance in both the payback period and the net power output at Tg,i ¼ 200 C and 250 C, respectively. Therefore, R236fa, R245fa and R113 are recommended as the working fluid of the ORC system when the inlet temperatures of the flue gas are around 150 C, 200 C and 250 C, respectively. 4. Conclusion A theoretical model on the payback period of the ORC system is established, which provides a new evaluation method of the ORC system performance. Based on the minimum payback period, the internal parameters of the ORC system are optimized and the influence of external parameters on the payback period is analyzed. The main conclusions can be summarized as follows: (1) The payback period of the ORC system initially decreases before increasing with the increase of the evaporation
11
temperature, the condensation temperature, and the pinch point temperature differences in the evaporator and condenser. There is a group of optimal internal parameters that minimize the payback period. (2) When the critical temperature of working fluids is above Tg,i(20e30) C, the optimal evaporation temperature, condensation temperature and pinch point temperature difference in the condenser increase monotonously with the increase of the inlet temperature of flue gas, while the optimal pinch point temperature difference in the evaporator remains approximately constant. (3) When the inlet temperature, mass flow rate of the flue gas, and the electricity price increase, the minimum payback period of the ORC system decreases. (4) When the minimum payback period and the net power output are used as two indicators to select the optimum working fluid, R236fa, R245fa and R113 are recommended as the working fluid of the ORC system when the inlet temperatures of the flue gas are around 150 C, 200 C and 250 C, respectively. Acknowledgment This work is supported by National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, Grant No. 2011CB710701). We are grateful to Dr. Aaron H. Persad from University of Toronto for his helpful grammatical edits. References [1] Lecompte S, Huisseune H, Broek MVD, Schampheleire SD, Paepe MD. Part load based thermo-economic optimization of the organic rankine cycle (ORC) applied to a combined heat and power (CHP) system. Appl Energy 2013;111: 871e81. [2] Wang ZQ, Zhou NJ, Guo J, Wang XY. Fluid selection and parametric optimization of organic Rankine cycle using low temperature waste heat. Energy 2012;40:107e15. [3] Schuster A, Karellas S, Kakaras E, Spliethoff H. Energetic and economic investigation of organic Rankine cycle applications. Appl Therm Eng 2009;29: 1809e17. [4] Larjola J. Electricity from industrial waste heat using high-speed organic Rankine cycle (ORC). Int J Prod Econ 1995;41:227e35. [5] Yamamoto T, Furuhata T, Arai N. Design and testing of the organic Rankine Cycle. Energy 2001;26:239e51. [6] Guo J, Xu M, Cheng L. Thermodynamic analysis of waste heat power generation system. Energy 2010;35:2824e35. [7] Wang D, Ling X, Peng H, Liu L, Tao L. Efficiency and optimal performance evaluation of organic Rankine cycle for low grade waste heat power generation. Energy 2013;50:343e52. [8] Quoilin S, Declaye S, Tchanche BF, Lemort V. Thermo-economic optimization of waste heat recovery organic Rankine Cycles. Appl Therm Eng 2011;31: 2885e93. [9] Rashidi MM, Galanis N, Nazari F, Basiri Parsa A, Shamekhi L. Parametric analysis and optimization of regenerative clausius and organic Rankine cycles with two feedwater heaters using artificial bees colony and artificial neural network. Energy 2011;36:5728e40. [10] Heberle F, Bruggemann D. Exergy based fluid selection for a geothermal organic Rankine cycle for combined heat and power generation. Appl Therm Energy 2010;30:1326e32. [11] He C, Liu C, Gao H, Xie H, Li YR, Wu SY. The optimal evaporation temperature and working fluids for subcritical organic Rankine cycle. Energy 2012;38:136e43. [12] Dai Y, Wang J, Gao L. Parametric optimization and comparative study of organic Rankine cycle (ORC) for low grade waste heat recovery. Energy Convers Manag 2009;50:576e82. [13] Guo T, Wang HX, Zhang SJ. Fluids and parameters optimization for a novel cogeneration system driven by low-temperature geothermal sources. Energy 2011;36:2639e49. [14] Hettiarachchia HDM, Golubovica M, Woreka WM. Optimum design criteria for an organic Rankine cycle using low-temperature geothermal heat sources. Energy 2007;32:1698e706. [15] Li YR, Wang JN, Du MT, Wu SY, Liu C, Xu JL. Effect of pinch point temperature difference on cost-effective performance of organic Rankine cycle. Int J Energy Res 2013;37:1952e62. [16] Li YR, Du MT, Wu CM, Wu SY, Liu C, Xu JL. Economical evaluation and optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle based on temperature matching analysis. Energy 2014;68:238e47.
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095
12
X.-Q. Wang et al. / Energy xxx (2015) 1e12
[17] Li YR, Du MT, Wu CM, Wu SY, Liu C. Potential analysis on organic Rankine cycle with mixture working fluids for waste heat recovery. Energy 2014;77: 509e19. [18] Zhang SJ, Wang HX, Guo T. Performance comparison and parametric optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and transcritical power cycle system for low-temperature geothermal power generation. Appl Energy 2011;88:2740e54. [19] Shu GQ, Yu GP, Tian H, Wei HQ, Liang XG. A multi-approach evaluation system (MA-ES) of organic rankine cycles (ORC) used in waste heat utilization. Appl Energy 2014;132:325e38. [20] Taylor GA. Managerial and engineering economy, vol. 183e5. New York: D Van Nostrand Company; 1980. p. 381e2. 357e61. [21] Dai YP, Wang JF, Gao L. Exergy analysis, parametric analysis and optimization for a novel combined power and ejector refrigeration cycle. Appl Therm Eng 2009;29:1983e90. [22] Sun J, Li WH. Operation optimization of an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) heat recovery power plant. Appl Therm Eng 2011;31:2032e41. [23] Liu B, Riviere P, Coquelet C, Gicquel R, David F. Investigation of a two stage Rankine cycle for electric power plants. Appl Energy 2012;100: 285e94. [24] REFPROP Version 8.0. NIST standard reference database 23. 2007. [25] Heberle F, Preißinger M, Brüggemann D. Zeotropic mixtures as working fluids in organic Rankine cycles for low-enthalpy geothermal resources. Renew Energy 2012;37:364e70. [26] Mago PJ, Chamra LM, Srinivasan K, Somayaji C. An examination of regenerative organic Rankine cycles using dry fluids. Appl Therm Eng 2008;28: 998e1007. [27] Little AB, Garimella S. Comparative assessment of alternative cycles for waste heat recovery and upgrade. Energy 2011;36:4492e504.
[28] Le VL, Feidt M, Kheiri A, Pelloux-Prayer S. Performance optimization of lowtemperature power generation by supercritical ORCs (organic Rankine cycles) using low GWP (global warming potential) working fluids. Energy 2014;67:513e26. [29] Wang DX, Ling X, Peng H. Cost-effectiveness performance analysis of organic Rankine cycle for low grade heat utilization coupling with operation condition. Appl Therm Eng 2013;58:571e84. [30] Zhou NJ, Wang XY, Chen Z, Wang ZQ. Experimental study on organic Rankine cycle for waste heat recovery from low-temperature flue gas. Energy 2013;55: 216e25. [31] Yamada N, Minami T, Anuar Mohamad MN. Fundamental experiment of pumpless Rankine-type cycle for low-temperature heat recovery. Energy 2011;36:1010e7. [32] Wang H, Peterson R, Herron T. Design study of configurations on system COP for a combined ORC (organic Rankine cycle) and VCC (vapor compression cycle). Energy 2011;36:4809e20. [33] Li W, Feng X, Yu LJ, Xu J. Effects of evaporating temperature and internal heat exchanger on organic Rankine cycle. Appl Therm Eng 2011;31: 4014e23. [34] Turton R, Bailie RC, Whiting WB, Shaeiwitz JA. Analysis, synthesis and design of chemical processes. 3rd ed. Boston: Prentice Hall; 2009. [35] Toffolo A, Lazzaretto A, Manente G, Paci M. A multi-criteria approach for the optimal selection of working fluid and design parameters in organic Rankine cycle systems. Appl Energy 2014;121:219e32. [36] Xu JL, Yu C. Critical temperature criterion for selection of working fluids for subcritical pressure organic Rankine cycles. Energy 2014;74:719e33. [37] Rayegan R, Tao YX. A procedure to select working fluids for solar organic Rankine cycles (ORCs). Renew Energy 2011;36:659e70.
Please cite this article in press as: Wang X-Q, et al., Payback period estimation and parameter optimization of subcritical organic Rankine cycle system for waste heat recovery, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.095