Thermodynamic re-assessment of a geothermal binary power plant operated in a moderate-temperature geothermal field

Abstract

An existing organic rankine cycle power plant which uses isobutane as working fluid is re-evaluated for different working fluids. The plant is first modelled by EES software; then the model is simulated for different working fluids obtaining heat transferred through the heat exchanger, net work output, energy and exergy efficiencies, and mass flowrate of the working fluid. Two parametric studies are conducted to evaluate the thermodynamic performance of the plant under a range of turbine inlet temperature (130°C–155°C) and geothermal resource temperature (152°C–161°C) for each working fluid. The study reveals that the highest cycle energy and exergy efficiencies are observed for R-152a at any geothermal resource temperature. R-152a resulted with 13.1% and 58.2% cycle energy and exergy efficiency, respectively at operation condition, whilst the lowest efficiency and net work output is calculated under n-butane presence.