Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com

Solar Energy 85 (2011) 955966

www.elsevier.com/locate/solener

Performance and design optimization of a low-cost solar

organic Rankine cycle for remote power generation
S. Quoilin a,, M. Orosz b, H. Hemond b, V. Lemort a
b

a
Thermodynamics Laboratory, University of Lie`ge, Campus du Sart Tilman, B49, B-4000 Lie`ge, Belgium
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 15 Vassar St. 48-216, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

Received 7 December 2010; received in revised form 10 February 2011; accepted 15 February 2011
Available online 16 March 2011
Communicated by: Associate Editor R. Petela

Abstract
Recent interest in small-scale solar thermal combined heat and power (CHP) power systems has coincided with demand growth for
distributed electricity supplies in areas poorly served by centralized power stations. One potential technical approach to meeting this
demand is the parabolic trough solar thermal collector coupled with an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) heat engine.
The paper describes the design of a solar organic Rankine cycle being installed in Lesotho for rural electrication purpose. The system
consists of parabolic though collectors, a storages tank, and a small-scale ORC engine using scroll expanders.
A model of each component is developed taking into account the main physical and mechanical phenomena occurring in the cycle and
based on experimental data for the main key components.
The model allows sizing the dierent components of the cycle and evaluates the performance of the system. Dierent working uids
are compared, and two dierent expansion machine congurations are simulated (single and double stage).
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Organic Rankine cycle; ORC; Solar concentrator; Parabolic trough; Rural electrication; Concentrating solar power

1. Introduction
Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems have been
implemented with a variety of collector systems such as the
parabolic trough, the solar dish, the solar tower or the Fresnel linear collector. However, most of the currently installed
CSP plants use a steam Rankine cycle in the power block.
This technology requires a minimum power of a few MWe
in order to be competitive and involves high collector
temperatures.
Particularly in the case of small-scale systems, an organic
Rankine cycle (i.e. a Rankine cycle using an organic uid
instead of water) may show a number of advantages over
the steam cycle. These include a lower working temperature,
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 32 4 366 48 22; fax: +1 32 4 366 48 12.

E-mail address: squoilin@ulg.ac.be (S. Quoilin).

0038-092X/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.solener.2011.02.010

the absence of droplets during the expansion, the low maintenance requirements and the simplicity (fewer components). According to McMahan (2006), those advantages
make the ORC technology more economically attractive
when used at small and medium power scales.
Solar ORCs have been studied both theoretically
(Davidson, 1977; Probert et al., 1983) and experimentally
(Monahan, 1976) as early as in the 1970s and with reported
overall eciencies varying between 2.52% and 7%. Experimental studies usually involved the use of vane expanders
(Badr et al., 1985 multi-vane expanders, Davidson, 1977),
and high Ozone Depleting Potential (ODP) refrigerants
such as R11 or R13 were often used. Recent studies have
tended to emphasize optimization of uid selection for
dierent cycle architectures and collecting temperatures
(Wolpert and Riat, 1996; McMahan, 2006; DelgadoTorres and Garcia-Rodriguez, 2007, 2010; Bruno et al.,

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S. Quoilin et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 955966

Nomenclature
A
c
D
FF

h
h
k
L
M
M
n
Np
Nrot
p
pinch
Q
q
r
rv,in
Sbeam
T
U
v
V
Vs
V
w
W

area, m2
specic heat, J/(kg K)
diameter (m)
lling factor,
heat transfer coecient, W/(m2 K)
specic enthalpy, J/(kg K)
conductivity, W/m K
length, m
mass, kg
mass ow rate, kg/s
number of nodes
number of plates
rotating speed, rpm
pressure, Pa
pinch point value, K
heat power, W
linear heat ux, W/m
ratio,
Internal built-in volume ratio,
beam solar insolation, W/m2
temperature, C
heat transfer coecient, W/(m2 K)
specic volume, m3/kg
velocity, m/s
swept volume, m3
volume ow rate, m3/s
specic work, J/kg
width, m

e
e
g
q
q
s

eectiveness
emissivity
eciency
density, kg/m3
reectivity,
transmittance

Subscripts and superscripts

abs
absorber
amb
ambient
cd
condenser
col
collector
eV
evaporator
ex
exhaust
exp
expander
i
relative to cell i
htf
heat transfer uid
hx
heat exchanger
l
liquid
opt
optical
p
pressure
pp
pump
rec
recuperator
su
supply
sf
secondary uid
tp
two-phase
tot
total
v
vapor
v
volume

Greek symbols
a
absorptivity

2008; Wang et al., 2010a). It is interesting to note, however,

that no single uid has been identied as optimal for the
ORC. This is mainly due to the strong interdependence
between the optimal working uid, the working conditions
and the cycle architecture. It follows that the study of the
working uid candidates should be integrated into the
design process of any ORC system.
Few studies have provided experimental data from operational solar ORC systems: Kane et al. (2003) studied the
coupling of linear Fresnel collectors with a cascaded 9kWe ORC, using R123 and R134a as working uids. An
overall eciency (solar to electricity) of 7.74% was
obtained, with a collector eciency of 57%. Manolakos
et al. (2007) studied a 2 kWe low-temperature solar ORC
with R134a as working uid and evacuated tube collectors:
an overall eciency below 4% was obtained. Wang et al.
(2010b) studied a 1.6 kWe solar ORC using a rolling piston
expander. An overall eciency of 4.2% was obtained with
evacuated tube collectors and 3.2% with at-plate collectors. The dierence in terms of eciency was explained

by lower collector eciency (71% for the evacuated tube

vs. 55% for the plate technology) and lower collection
temperature.
Detailed models of such systems are also scarce in the
scientic literature: McMahan (2006) proposed a detailed
model and an optimization of the ORC cycle for solar
applications, but this model was not coupled to a solar collector model; Forristall (2003) proposed a model of the
solar collectors validated with the SEGS plants data, independent of a power cycle model. Jing et al. (2010) developed a model of an ORC cycle using R123 as working
uid and coupled to CPC collectors: the predicted overall
eciency was about 7.9% for a solar insolation of
800 W/m2 and an evaporating temperature of 147 C.
Kane (2002) developed a model of a cascaded ORC using
scroll expanders and coupled to a collector model. This
model was used to conduct a thermoeconomic optimization on the system.
Most of the above mentioned studies show that the
ORC eciency is signicantly improved by inclusion of a

S. Quoilin et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 955966

recuperator, of cascaded cycles, or of reheating (McMahan, 2006; Kane et al., 2003; Prabhu, 2006).
At present, only one commercial solar ORC power plant
is reported in the technical literature: the 1 MWe Saguaro
Solar ORC plant in Arizona, USA. This plant uses
n-pentane as working uid and shows an overall eciency
of 12.1%, for a collector eciency of 59% (Canada et al.,
2004).
If medium-scale solar ORCs are already commercially
available, work remains to be done for very small-scale
units (a few kWe), especially to reduce the specic investment costs and to control the system in order to avoid
the need of an on-site operator.
2. System description
Researchers at MIT and University of Lie`ge have collaborated with the non-governmental organization STG
International for the purpose of developing and implementing a small-scale solar thermal technology utilizing
medium temperature collectors and an ORC. A rst unit
was installed by STG in 2007, and is shown in Fig. 1.
The goal is to provide rural areas of developing countries with a system that can be manufactured and assembled locally (unlike PV collectors) and can replace or
supplement Diesel generators in o-grid areas, by generating clean power at a lower levelized cost (Orosz et al.,
2010).
At the core of this technology is a solar thermal power
plant consisting of a eld of parabolic solar concentrating
collectors and a vapor expansion power block for generating electricity. An electronic control unit is added for
autonomous operation as sub-megawatt scale plants cannot justify the stang of operating personnel. Operating
at a lower cycle temperatures (<200 C) and Carnot eciency is an example of a design tradeo for maintaining
low cost at small scales. For a given level of output power,
lower temperatures enable cost savings in the materials and

Fig. 1. Solar ORC prototype installed by STG in Lesotho.

957

manufacture of the absorber units, heat exchangers, uid

manifolds and parabolic troughs.
Because no thermal power blocks are currently manufactured in the kilowatt range a small-scale ORC has to
be designed for this application. The design is based on
modied commercially available components e.g. HVAC
scroll compressors (for the expander), and industrial
pumps and heat exchangers. It should be noted that the
main challenge for ORC development is the high cost of
specially designed expandergenerator equipment. At present, no volumetric expander is available on the market. In
order to reduce the cost of a practicable system, the expander is obtained by adapting an o-the-shelf hermetic scroll
compressor to run in reverse, as proposed and successfully
tested by Lemort et al. (2009a). Scroll machines show the
advantage of being widely available, reliable and with a
limited number of moving parts (Zanelli and Favrat, 1994).
The goal of this paper is to design and dimension an
improved solar ORC unit to be installed in a rural clinic
in Berea District of Lesotho and to evaluate its performance with dierent working uids. The main characteristics of this unit are the following:
 Target net output power: 3 kWe
 Collector eld: 75 m2 single-axis parabolic trough, using
Miro aluminum reectors and a Heat Collection Element (HCE) with selective coating and air-lled annulus
between absorber pipe and glazing.
 ORC: One or two-stage expansion of R245fa using modied commercial HVAC compressors, brazed plate heat
exchangers for high pressure heat transfer, and commercial HVAC tubes-and-ns air condenser for heat
rejection.
 Heat transfer uid (HTF): Monoethylene glycol (MEG)
with thermal buering in a thermal storage tank with a
2 m3 packed bed of 19 mm quartzite.
The heat transfer uid is heated up in the collector eld
and driven to the evaporator by the heat transfer uid
pump. A thermal storage is installed in order to attenuate
the fast uctuations of solar irradiation during the day
and to maintain stable operation of the ORC engine (see
Fig. 2).
The main components in the classical Rankine cycle
include an evaporator, expander, a condenser and a recirculation pump. In an ORC with a dry uid, recuperation
from the superheated exhaust to the subcooled liquid is
typically achieved with a heat exchanger interposed
between the expander exhaust and the pump outlet. This
superheated exhaust is also readily exploitable for cogeneration, requiring an additional heat exchanger which can
be positioned in series with or parallel to the recuperator.
In the proposed system the cycle heat exchangers (evaporator, recuperator and condenser) are sized in order to
obtain the required pinch point and pressure drop. The
working uid is condensed in an air condenser in order
to avoid unnecessary water consumption (but at the

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S. Quoilin et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 955966

Fig. 2. Conceptual scheme of the solar ORC.

expense of non-negligible fan consumption) and then

repressurized in a piston pump The expansion process is
performed by one or two modied HVAC scroll machines
congured in series. Cogeneration is obtained with the
additional plate heat exchanger installed between the
expander and the recuperator in order to produce hot
water in addition to electricity, depending on the local
demand.
3. Modeling
In this section, a steady-state model of the system presented in Fig. 2 is developed, for the rating and sizing of
the dierent components and to optimize the working conditions on a nominal point. The transient behavior of the
solar source is not taken into account here and an average
insolation is utilized. It is assumed that the storage is sized
in such a way to maintain almost constant heat transfer
uid ow rate and temperature during the operating time
of the system: the ORC engine is assumed to stand by in
case of insucient solar insolation for meeting temperature
requirements and in order to avoid part-load conditions
that might reduce the cycle eciency. In practice this
means that during periods of low insolation, the time to
charge the storage to the set operational point is longer
than the operating time of the ORC engine. In light of this
steady state hypothesis, the storage tank is not modeled.
The water heating heat exchanger is also neglected, since
the main goal of the model is to evaluate the electricity generation potential of the system.
The solar ORC is model within the EES environment
(Klein, 2010): a model is developed for each subcomponent
and included into a module. These modules are further
interconnected to obtain the global model of the system.
The proposed global model cannot be validated experimentally because of the lack of experimental data. However,
it was shown in a previous publication that connecting validated component submodels in order to build a global ORC
model can lead to an acceptable overall error lower than 10%
compared to experimental data (Quoilin et al., 2010).
Since a nominal size (or power) must be set, the proposed model is a hybrid between a simulation model and
a sizing model: on one hand, the design, the size and the
parameters of the collector are set according to the collector technology developed by STG International and

installed in Lesotho. On the other hand, the size of the

ORC cycle and of its components is recalculated by the
model in order to obtain a good match between collector
power and ORC engine power.
3.1. Parabolic trough model
The trough module, largely adapted from Forristall
(2003), is a one-dimensional energy balance model around
a Heat Collection Element (HCE) of user specied dimensions and materials: Radiation impinges on a reector element with user-input focal length, reective coecient, and
aperture. The energy is correspondingly reduced (e.g. due
to a reective coecient <1) and concentrated onto a nodal
area of the HCE, where it is transmitted through a glass
envelope and a gas annulus, and nally absorbed or
reected at the surface of the HCE.
Depending on the absorptivity and emissivity characteristics of the selective coating and the temperature of the
HTF owing through the HCE at a given node, some
amount of absorbed energy is transferred through the
HCE wall into the HTF (process 21 in Fig. 3) with a heat
exchange coecient calculated from the uid thermal properties and ow regime parameters. The remaining absorbed
heat is lost at the HCE outer surface, via convection and
radiation back through the annulus (process 34), conduction through the envelope (process 45), radiation between

Fig. 3. Heat transfer in the absorber.

S. Quoilin et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 955966

the envelope and the sky (process 57) and convection to

the ambient air (process 56).
This process is repeated for each node, where the input
for each node is the output of the previous node, resulting
in an overall enthalpy and temperature gain for the focal
line length specied by the user. The collector module thus
derives a thermal eciency and outputs a heat ux and
temperature gain for the HTF at the user specied ow rate
and initial temperature.
The dierent heat transfer relations used to compute the
heat ows are provided in Table 1.
The amounts of radiation absorbed by the collector and
by the glass enveloped are respectively given by (Forristall,
2003):
qsun;3 qsun  gopt  senv  acoating

qsun;5 qsun  gopt  aenv

where qsun S  W col is the linear beam insolation.

And
gopt qmirror  gshadowing  ggeomery  gunaccounted

gopt is the optical eciency, lumping dierent sources of

losses such as mirror reectivity (qmirror), tracking losses
(gtracking), shadowing (gshadowing), geometrical eects
(ggeometry and other unaccounted losses (gunaccounted). The
values of the dierent eciencies are the ones recommended by Forristall (2003), except for gtracking and
ggeometry, where a signicantly lower eciency is selected.
This conservative hypothesis is made in order to account
for the relatively lower optical intercept factor (0.9)
resulting from the low-cost design of the collector, which
could reduce the performance of the system.
In order to reduce the magnitude of q34,rad, a selective
coating is applied on the collector tube, maximizing the
solar absorptivity and minimizing the infra-red emissivity.
This emissivity is calculated according to Forristall recommendation for a Solar UAV cermet coating:
ecoating 2:249  107  T 23 1:039  104  T 3 5:599  102
4
For each cell of the discretized collector (having a length
equal to the total focal line length divided by the number

959

of nodes) the dierent energy balance equations can be

applied:
T ex;cell T su;cell

q12  Dx
M htf  cphtf

q45 q34;conv q34;rad

q56;conv q45 qsun;5  q57

q12;conv q23

q23 q34;conv q34;rad  qsun;3 0

Moreover, a pressure drop in the heat transfer uid can be

computed in each cell using the following equation:
Dpcell

f  DL  G2htf
2  D2  q

10

where f is the friction factor, calculated with the Gnielinski

correlation (Incropera and Dewitt, 2002).
The dierent parameters used for the modeling of the
solar collected are summarized in Table 2.
3.2. Evaporator model
The evaporator is modeled by means of the Logarithmic
Mean Temperature Dierence (LMTD) method for
Table 2
Collector model parameters.
Parameter

Description

Value

qmirror
gtracking
gshadowing
ggeometry
gunaccounted
D2
D3
D4
D5
Lcol
Wcol
senv
aenv
acoating
eenv
N

Mirror reectivity
Tracking error
Shadowing error
Geometry error
Unaccounted losses
Absorber tube inner diameter
Absorber tube outer diameter
Envelope inner diameter
Envelope outer diameter
Total collector length
Collector width
Envelope transmissivity
Envelope absorptivity
Coating absorptivity
Envelope emissivity
Number of node

0.94
0.92
0.98
0.93
0.96
66 mm
70 mm
80 mm
88 mm
46 m
2.5 m
0.96
0.04
0.96
0.86
15

Table 1
Absorber heat transfer models.
Heat transfer type

Heat transfer law

12

Convection

Gnielinski correlation for turbulent heat transfer in pipes (Incropera and Dewitt, 2002)
T 2 T 3
q23 2pk 23 lnD
3 =D2

23

Conduction
Convection

k23 is the assumed-to-be-constant steel conductivity: k23 = 50 W/mK

Hollands correlation for natural convection in an annular space between horizontal cylinders (Hollands et al., 1975).

34

Radiation

q34;rad

45

Conduction

5
q45 2pk 45 lnT D4 T
5 =D4

56
56
57

Free convection
Forced convection
Radiation

Churchill and Chu correlation for laminar convection from a horizontal cylinder (Incropera and Dewitt, 2002).
Zhukauskas correlation for external forced convection ow normal to an isothermal cylinder (Incropera and Dewitt, 2002)
q57;rad rpD5 T 45  T 47 T7 is taken 8 below the ambient temperature.

rpD3 T 43 T 44
1 1e4 D3
e3 e4 D4

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S. Quoilin et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 955966

counter-ow heat exchangers. The heat exchanger is subdivided into three moving-boundaries zones, each of them
being characterized by a heat transfer area A and a heat
transfer coecient U (Quoilin et al., 2010).
The heat transfer coecient U is calculated by considering two convective heat transfer resistances in series (secondary uid and refrigerant sides).
1
1
1

U hr hsf

11

The total heat transfer area of the heat exchanger is given

by:
Atot Al Atp Av N p  2  L  W

12

Np being the number of plates, L the plate length and W

the plate width.
3.2.1. Single-phase
Forced convection heat transfer coecients are
evaluated by means of the non-dimensional relationship:
Nu CRem Prn

13

where the inuence of temperature-dependent viscosity is

neglected.
The parameters C, m and n are set according to Thonons correlation for corrugated plate heat exchangers
(Thonon et al., 1995).
The pressure drops are computed with the following
relation:
Dp

2  f  G2
L
q  Dh

W tot W hx 

Np  1
2

The two degrees of freedom are xed by the heat exchange

area requirement and the limitation on the pressure drop
on the working uid side:
 Increasing the total width decreases the Reynolds number. This leads to a lower pressure drop and to a higher
required heat transfer area, since the heat transfer coefcient is also decreased.
 Increasing the plate length leads to a higher pressure
drop.
Therefore, by imposing a pinch point and a pressure
drop, it is possible to dene the total width and the length
of the plate heat exchanger. The ow chart of the sizing
process is shown in Fig. 4.
The imposed parameters of the evaporator model are
presented in Table 3.
3.3. Recuperator model
The recuperator model is similar to the evaporator
model, with one zone (single-phase) instead of three. The

14

where f is the friction factor, calculated with the Thonon correlation, G is the mass velocity (kg/s m2), q is the mean uid
density, Dh is the hydraulic diameter and L is the plate length.
3.2.2. Boiling heat transfer coecient
The overall boiling heat transfer coecient is estimated
by the Hsieh correlation, established for the boiling of
refrigerant R410a in a vertical plate heat exchanger. This
heat exchange coecient is considered as constant during
the whole evaporation process and is calculated by (Hsieh
and Lin, 2003):
htp Chl Bo0:5

15

where Bo is the boiling number and hl is the all-liquid nonboiling heat transfer coecient.
The pressure drops are calculated in the same manner as
in Eq. (14), using the Hsieh correlation for the calculation
of the friction factor.
3.2.3. Heat exchanger sizing
For a given corrugation pattern (amplitude, chevron
angle, and enlargement factor), two degrees of freedom
are available when sizing a plate heat exchanger: the length
and the total ow width. The total ow width is given by
the plate width multiplied by the number of channels:

16

Fig. 4. Plate heat exchangers sizing process.

S. Quoilin et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 955966

and

Table 3
Evaporator model parameters.
Parameter

Description

Value

Dh
bchevron

Hydraulic diameter
Chevron angle

2 mm
45

inputs of the model are the maximum pressure drop and

the heat exchanger eciency, which allows sizing the
exchanger in terms of total width and length.
3.4. Expander model
Volumetric expanders, such as the scroll, screw or reciprocating technologies present an internal built-in volume
ratio (rv,in) corresponding to the ratio between the inlet
pocket volume and the outlet pocket volume. This can generate two types of losses if the system specic volume ratio
is not equal to the expander nominal volume ratio:
Under-expansion occurs when the internal volume ratio
of the expander is lower than the system specic volume
ratio. In that case, the specic volume in the expansion
chambers at the end of the expansion process (Pin) is lower
than the specic volume in the discharge line.
Likewise over-expansion occurs when the internal volume ratio imposed by the expander is higher than the system specic volume ratio.
These two eects can considerably reduce the eciency
of the expansion process. Other sources of losses include
friction losses, supply pressure drop, internal leakage and
heat transfers (Lemort et al., 2009a,b).
Since no o-the-shelf small-scale expansion machine is
currently available on the market, the expander was
obtained by modifying a scroll compressor to make it run
in reverse. This allows keeping the expander cost low, hermetic compressors being very common components in
HVAC applications. On the other hand, since the device
is not optimized for expander applications, experimental
results by Lemort et al. showed that the eciency is
reduced by about 10% when working in expander mode
(about 60% eciency) compared to the compressor mode
(typically 70%). In this work, the considered expander is
a hermetic scroll expander tested and modeled by Lemort
et al. (2009b).
A semi-empirical thermodynamic model such as the one
proposed by Lemort et al. is not suitable for the purpose of
this work since it was developed for one machine in particular. Here, a sizing model is needed, that can predict the
performance of scroll expanders with very dierent swept
volumes.
If ambient heat losses are neglected, scroll expanders can
be modeled by their isentropic eciency and by their lling
factor, respectively dened by (Lemort et al., 2009b):
eexp

W exp
M  hsu; exp  hex; exp;s

961

17

FF

60  M
qsu  V s  N rot

18

where Vs is the swept volume of the expander and Nrot its

rotational speed (assumed-to-be-constant at 3000 rpm).
where Wexp is the electrical power generated by the expander and hex,exp,s is the isentropic exhaust enthalpy. It should
be noted that the given eciency is an electrical and not a
mechanical isentropic eciency (i.e. electromechanical
losses in the generator are accounted for).
In order to simulate realistic performance close to the
actual experimental data, the model developed by Lemort
et al. (2009b) is used to express e and FF as a polynomial
law of the main working conditions. The two selected
working conditions are the uid inlet density qsu and pressure ratio over the expander rp since they turned out to be
the two main representative variables of the working conditions. The polynomial ts are expressed in the following
form:
e

n1 X
n1
X
i0

aij  lnrp  qjsu a0n  lnrp a0n  qn1

j0

f rp ; qsu

19

For e, a 4th-order (n = 4) polynomial t is used, while for

FF a second-order (n = 2) polynomial t turned out to be
sucient. The correlations have been established on the basis of the validated model for 800 dierent working points
inside of the following operating conditions:
30 < qsu < 200;

1:2 < rp < 12

The values of e and FF were respectively predicted by the

polynomial t with R2 = 99.98% and R2 = 99.96%.
It is assumed that, when changing the scale of the expander (and thus the swept volume), the isentropic eciency
and the lling factor remain similar if the pressure ratio
and the inlet density are kept equal.
3.4.1. Double-stage expander
As mentioned above, volumetric expanders are optimized for a given specic volume ratio. It appears that
the specic volume ratios involved in refrigeration for
which the scroll compressors are designed is typically much
lower than the specic volume ratios involved in ORC
cycles. When the expander is obtained from a modied
scroll compressor, under-expansion losses can therefore
become prohibitive for high specic volume ratios (typically higher than 10). A possible solution consists in using
two expanders assembled in series, as shown in Fig. 5.
When sizing a double-stage expander, it is important to
dene carefully the two swept volumes in order to optimize
the intermediate pressure p2. If the expander eciency was
only dependent on the pressure ratio, the optimal singlestage pressure ratio would be dened as the square root
p
of the overall pressure ratio rp;1 rp;2 rp However,
the eciency also depends on the ow rate going through

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S. Quoilin et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 955966

A constant, realistic value of 70% is assumed for the

pump eciency (Lin, 2008).
3.7. Cycle model
The global model of the system is obtained by interconnecting each subcomponent model according to Fig. 6.
Several performance indicators can be dened.
The overall collector eciency:
Fig. 5. Two-stage expander.

gcol

the expander because a higher ow rate entails a higher

output power and makes the constant losses (e.g. friction
losses) relatively smaller. In the polynomial correlations,
the inuence of the ow rate is reected by the dependence
in terms of supply vapor density.
In order to determine the optimal rst-stage pressure
ratio, the overall isentropic eciency is maximized using
the following equation:


de
d h1  h3

0
20
drp;1 drp;1 h1  h3s
This can be done numerically or analytically. For the latter
solution, e must be expressed in terms of rp,1, which can be
achieved using the ideal gas hypothesis.
3.5. Condenser model
Since air condensers are well-known components in
HVAC applications, a simplied model based on manufacturer data (Witt, 2004) is used to compute the condenser
performance and fan consumption.
The two inputs are the pinch point, dened as the dierence between the condensing temperature and the ambient
temperature, and the condensing power.
Special attention is paid to the fan consumption since it
can amount for a non-negligible share of the generated
power. The fan consumption is computed as a function
of the heat transfer power and of the pinch point with
the following relation:
W fan;cd 54:5 0:0185  Qcd 

8:333
pinchcd

M htf  cphtf  T htf;ex;col  T htf;su;col

S beam  Lcol  W col

The net electrical output power:

W net W exp  W pp  W fans  W pp;htf

gORC

W net
QeV

goverall

W net
gcol  gORC
S beam  Lcol  W col

26

In this work, the pinch points are set to 8 K, the superheating at the expander inlet is set to 10 K, the subcooling
at the condenser outlet is set to 5 K, and the maximum
pressure drop on the refrigerant side of each heat exchanger is set to 75 mbar.
4. System performance and uid comparison
This section aims at understanding the inuence of
dierent cycle parameters on the system and to compare

21

22

For the HTF pump, the pressure dierence is given by the

sum of the pressure drops in the evaporator and in the
collector.

25

The overall system eciency:

Two pump consumptions are taken into account: the

heat transfer uid pump and the working uid pump. They
are modeled by their isentropic eciency, dened by
(Quoilin et al., 2010):
vsu;pp  pex;pp  psu;pp
hex;pp  hsu;pp

24

The ORC cycle eciency:

3.6. Pumps model

epp

23

Fig. 6. Global model parameters, inputs and outputs.

S. Quoilin et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 955966

963

several working uids and cycle architectures. For that

purpose, nominal ambient conditions are imposed and
are kept constant for all the simulations performed below:
T amp 15  C
pamp 0:83 bars
S beam 800 W=m2
V wind 2 m=s
These conditions are typical of the mid-season or winter
time conditions in the highlands of Lesotho.
Three main degrees of freedom are available to control
the working conditions of the cycle: the heat transfer uid
ow rate, the working uid ow rate and the expander
swept volume or rotational speed. Setting the working uid
ow rate and the expander speed allows dening the evaporating temperature and the superheating (Quoilin et al.,
2010). Setting the heat transfer uid ow rate allows dening the temperature glide in the collector. According to
Yamamoto et al. (2001), the superheating should be maintained as low as possible when using high molecular weight
working uids. The two remaining degrees of freedom
(evaporating temperature and collector temperature glide)
can be determined optimally, as shown in the next sections.

eciency is lowered by the low heat transfer coecient in

the collector. An optimum is obtained for a temperature
glide of 15 K, corresponding to a heat transfer uid ow
rate of 1.2 kg/s.
In the following parametric studies, the temperature
glide value will always be set to its optimal value for each
computed working point. This value is obtained with the
Golden Section Search algorithm.

4.1. Inuence of the temperature glide in the collector

4.2. Inuence of the evaporating pressure

Modifying the heat transfer uid ow rate entails two

main antagonist eects: on the one hand, the overall temperature level in the collector is modied (Fig. 7), which
will impact its thermal eciency via the various heat loss
mechanisms.
On the other hand, changing the uid ow rate aects
the heat transfer coecient between the heat transfer uid
and the absorber, which also impacts the collector
eciency.
Fig. 8 shows that the second eect is predominant: For
very low temperature glides, the overall eciency is
reduced because of the very high HTF uid pumping
consumption. For high temperature glides, the overall

The selection of the optimal evaporating temperature

results in a tradeo between collector eciency and cycle
eciency. In the particular case of an ORC using volumetric expanders, increasing the evaporation temperature also
increases the under-expansion losses and reduces the cycle
eciency, which constitutes an additional inuence.
The goal of this section is to illustrate the inuence of
the evaporating temperature on dierent cycle parameters
and performance indicators. For that purpose, an arbitrary
working point is selected: the selected working uid is
R245fa, with a two-stage expander, an optimized heat
transfer uid temperature glide, a superheating of 5 K,
and a subcooling of 5 K.

Fig. 7. Ts diagram of the ORC process.

Fig. 9. Inuence the evaporation temperature on the performance.

Fig. 8. Inuence of the HTF temperature glide.

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S. Quoilin et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 955966

As shown in Fig. 9, increasing the evaporating temperature leads to higher cycle eciency and to lower collector
eciency. An optimal overall eciency is stated around
150 C, which is just below the critical point (154 C for
R245fa).
The evaporating temperature also has an impact on the
size of the dierent components. Fig. 10 shows that with
high evaporating temperature levels, smaller swept volumes
are needed for both expanders since the inlet densities are
higher. This is an appreciable advantage since the cost of
the expanders is reduced.
A similar eect is stated for the heat transfer area of the
evaporator (Fig. 11): for a given pressure drop, a higher
vapor density allows reducing the passage area, which in
turn reduces the required area. Fig. 11 also shows that a
modication of the evaporating temperature has a very
limited eect on the required recuperator area. Although
those calculations were performed for R245fa, a similar
behavior is stated for alternative working uids.
4.3. Working uid and architecture comparison
In order to compare a reasonable amount of working
uids, a pre-screening is performed with the following
conditions:

Fig. 11. Required heat transfer area vs. evaporation temperature.

One of the main inuences of the working uid on the

cycle architecture lies in the specic volume ratio: generally
speaking, the higher the critical temperature, the higher the
specic volume ratio over the expander. The scroll expanders considered in this work are designed for a volume ratio
close to 3. As discussed above, when used at much higher

 The critical point of the working uid should be similar

to the target temperature range (100200 C).
 The working uid should be a well known-uid in stateof-the-art ORC applications or in the scientic literature
dealing with working uid selection (see Quoilin and
Lemort (2009) for a review). This criterion ensures that
several conditions such as the toxicity, the cost or the
ammability are fullled.
 The working uid should have a null Ozone Depleting
Potential (ODP) in order to avoid the phasing-out of
the Montreal Protocol.
Four uids have been selected using this methodology:
R134a, R245fa, Solkatherm (SES36) and n-pentane.

Fig. 12. Specic volume ratio vs. evaporation temperature.

Fig. 10. Required swepts volumes vs. evaporating temperature.

Fig. 13. Overall eciency for dierent working uids.

S. Quoilin et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 955966

965

Table 4
Simulations results for the dierent working uids.

n-Pentane
SES36
SES36
R245fa
R245fa
R134a

Tev (C)

DTHTF (C)

gcol (%)

gORC (%)

goverall (%)

eexp (%)

Vs,1 (cm3)

Vs,2 (cm3)

Aev (m2)

Arec (m2)

189
169
150
150
109
85

31.6
19.5
14.0
22.9
12.8
17.1

59.1
60.4
61.6
61.6
63.9
65.1

11.9
13.1
12.3
11.2
7.7
5.6

7.0
7.9
7.5
6.9
4.9
3.6

47.2
54.9
55.0
58.7
50.3
59.7

22.2
27.1
44.9
20.8
59.9
37.2

98.9
137.3
180.7
92.8
0
0

0.95
1.1
1.71
1.48
4.02
2.7

3.53
1.24
1.29
2.54
2.73
1.53

specic volume ratios, their eectiveness is reduced.

Fig. 12 shows that the specic volume ratio remains acceptable for single-stage expansion only for R134a and R245fa
(at low evaporating temperature). In the simulations,
R134a is therefore used with single-stage expansion architecture. Solkatherm and n-pentane are simulated with a
double-stage expansion. R245fa is simulated with both
architectures.
Fig. 13 shows the overall eciency of the system with
the four dierent uids. A maximum appears in terms of
evaporating temperature when the single-stage architecture
is selected. This is explained by the very high underexpansion losses that reduce the expander eectiveness at
high evaporating temperature. On the contrary, when using
a two-stage expansion, the eciency is limited by the critical temperature or by unrealistic working conditions such
as very high specic volume ratios.
Solkatherm is the uid showing the highest eciency,
with a maximum close to 8%. It should however be noted
that refrigeration compressors are not designed for temperatures higher than 150 C, which might reduce their lifetime. If this limit is applied, the maximum overall
eciency is 7.5% for Solkatherm and 7% for R245fa.
Additional parameters to the sole eciency must be taken
into account when comparing working uids. Table 4 shows
the more relevant cycle parameters for a few selected optimal
points. The bold characters indicate the most advantageous
value for each column. If Solkatherm is the most ecient
uid, it is also the one requiring the biggest expander, with
a suction swept volume (in expander mode) of 180.7 cm3
for the second stage of expansion and an evaporating temperature of 150 C. R245fa on the contrary shows very
advantageous swept volumes, which could reduce the cost
of the system. n-Pentane must be run at very high temperature to show a good eciency. Its required evaporator area
is advantageous, but the required recuperator area is very
high due to the low density and the very high pressure drops
in the low-pressure vapor.
4.4. Inuence of the working conditions
The developments proposed above were conducted for
nominal conditions, dened in Section 4. However, the
selection of these working conditions can have a non-negligible inuence on the simulation results.
A parametric study is therefore performed to evaluate
the inuence of the nominal working conditions on the

Fig. 14. Inuence of the working conditions on the eciency.

overall eciency: this study is performed for the SES36

working uid and an evaporating temperature imposed at
150 C (third line in Table 4). Fig. 14 shows the inuence
of the wind speed, of the ambient temperature and of the
solar beam insolation on the system performance. The
inuence of the wind speed is straightforward: the higher
the speed, the lower the overall eciency since the heat
transfer coecient from the collector to the ambient is
increased. The same trend is stated for the beam insolation:
a higher value makes the ambient losses of the collector
proportionally smaller, and the overall eciency is
increased. The ambient temperature inuences the cycle
performance in two dierent ways: the ambient heat losses
of the collector are increased with a lower ambient temperature, and the cycle eciency is increased because of a
lower condensing temperature. Fig. 14 shows that this second inuence is predominant: for a 330 C evolution of
the ambient temperature, the collector eciency is
increased by 2%, while the ORC cycle eciency is
decreased by 15%, resulting in a 13% decrease of the overall
eciency.
5. Conclusions
Small-scale solar Organic Cycles are well adapted for
remote o-grid areas of developing countries. Compared
to the main competitive technology, the PV collector, Solar

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S. Quoilin et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 955966

ORCs have an advantage of being manufacturable locally.

They are also more exible and allow the production of hot
water as a by-product.
This work focused on the evaluation of the thermodynamic performance of the system. With conservative
hypotheses, and real expander eciency curves, it was
shown that an overall electrical eciency between 7%
and 8% can be reached. This eciency is a steady-state eciency at a nominal working point. In order to evaluate the
yearly energy output, a dynamic model is needed. In particular, the behavior of the storage tank should be modeled to
perform a 1-year simulation.
It should be noted that these calculations were performed for o-the-shelf components, especially the expander, whose combined electro-mechanical eciency did not
exceed 60%. Components specically developed for the target applications (e.g. a high volume ratio expander, optimized for the ORC working uid) could signicantly
increase the system performance.
The comparison between working uids showed that the
most ecient uid is Solkatherm. However, it is also the
uid requiring the highest expander swept volumes, which
increases the cost of the system. R245fa also shows a good
eciency and has the advantage of requiring much smaller
equipment.
Even though part-load conditions were not simulated in
the present work, the proposed model allows computing
the performance of the system for a wide range of working
and ambient conditions.
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