DYNA JOURNAL ENGINEERING

Key words:

Organic ORC, renewable, solar energy, solar thermal cogeneration, Linear Fresnel Collector, R1233zd(E), exergy analysis, thermodynamic optimization, rural electrification, working fluids, MATLAB simulation, energy recovery, low-temperature power generation, sustainable development, solar power systems.

Article type:

COLABORACION/COLLABORATION DAMR

Section:

COLLABORATIONS

Among the rural applications of solar energy are electricity generation and heat production for alternative processes. The goal of this work was to evaluate the thermodynamic performance of an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) coupled to a solar thermal system consisting of 20 Fresnel Linear Collectors (FLC). The system operates with water pressurized (7 bar) and is designed to generate 10 kW of electrical power using a radial turbine, in addition to supplying useful heat for domestic processes. The thermodynamic calculations were performed in MATLAB, using CoolProp as the database. To calculate the thermal load delivered by the FLCs, Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI) data from Cuentepec (18° 43' 45.0" N, 99° 18' 00.0" O), a rural community in Morelos, Mexico, was used. Four working fluids were thermodynamically evaluated in the ORC: R1233zd(E), R245fa, R123, R113, and Novec649. The R1233zd(E) fluid yielded the highest net power in the turbine (11.65 kW) and the lowest amount of useful heat (133.70 kW). The Novec 649 fluid produced the lowest power (6.40 kW) but the highest amount of useful heat (138.95 kW). The thermal efficiencies for R1233zd(E) and Novec 649 are 8% and 4%, respectively, while the exergy efficiencies achieved are 4% and 22%. For fluids with higher net power in the turbine, R1233zd(E) and R245fa, their thermodynamic performance was determined with recovery rates (TR =0.1, 0.2, 0.35, and 0.5) of the thermal load at the turbine outlet, achieving a 38% increase in power for R245fa and a 40% increase for R1233zd(E).

Keywords: Organic ORC, renewable, solar energy, solar thermal cogeneration, Linear Fresnel Collector, R1233zd(E).