ORGANIC RANKINE CYCLE POWER PLANT FOR WASTE HEAT RECOVERY

Lucien Y. Bronicki, Chairman ORMAT International Inc. 980 Greg St., Sparks, Nevada 89431-6039 - USA Tel: +1 775 356 9029, Fax: +1 775 9039 email: ormat@ormat.com

Keywords:

Organic Rankine Cycle, Waste Heat Recovery, Cement Industry, Gas Compression Station

ABSTRACT Power Plants based on the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) have been increasingly employed over the last 20 years to produce power from various heat sources when other alternatives were either technically not practical or not economical. These power plants in sizes from 300 kW to 130 MW have demonstrated the maturity of this technology. The cycle is well adapted to low moderate temperature heat sources such as waste heat from industrial plants and is widely used producing 600 MW of electric power from geothermal and waste heat resources. The ORC technology is applicable to heat recovery of medium size gas turbines and cement plants, and offers significant advantages over conventional steam bottoming cycles. One such system, the 6.5 MW Gold Creek Power Plant is now in operation at a gas compressor station in Canada displacing some 25,000 tons of CO2 yearly. The Gold Creek Power Plant is owned and operted by a subsidiary of Transcanada Pipeline. A second system of 1.5 MW is operating at the Heidelberger Zement AG Plant in Lengurt, Germany. These environmentally friendly power plants are the first to be installed in these industries. The Cement power plant is recovering unused grate cooler heat and is generating electricity on a continuosly basis without interfering with the initial clinker production process, displacing some 7000 t of CO2 yearly. The use of ORC technology based systems has matured to a field proven and highly reliable technology. ORC have demonstrated advantages over conventional steam cycles and are particularly applicable to geothermal power plants and the recovery of waste heat, from small to medium gas turbines such as the compressor stations, while providing cost and environmental advantages. 1. INTRODUCTION A. Lengfurt Cement Power Plant

The ORMAT heat recovery system at the Heidelberger Zement AG Plant in Lengfurt is the first of such systems supplied to the cement industry. (Figure 1) This environmentally friendly plant recovers the unused grate cooler heat and generates 1,300 kW of electricity on a continuous basis, amounting to over 10% of the cement plant's internal electricity use, without interfering with the initial clinker production process. The waste heat recovery power plant will result in the saving of 7,000 tons of CO2 annually. Even for an optimized cement process, significant heat loss, mainly caused by the heat of the waste gases, still occurs. The heat balance of a kiln plant reveals that preheater waste gases and cooler exhaust air account for more than 30% of that heat loss. Waste heat sources may be directly used for drying of raw material, coal or intergrinding matter. However, there are numerous cement plants where this utilization is either not possible or not required and this unused heat is lost. The economic order of magnitude of such losses in a typical kiln line of 2000 t/d capacity with a 4-stage cyclone preheater and grate cooler, is as follows:

Assuming a preheater waste-gas temperature of 350C and grate cooler exhaust-air temperature of 275C, approximately 1,100 kJ/kg (clinker) of unused heat is lost. When firing coal of a net calorific value of 23,000 kJ/kg, the annual loss to be attributed to unused process heat is approximately US $1.0 $1.6 million; a very significant expense for lost energy. The preferred approach to overcome this economically unsatisfactory situation is to use the waste heat for the generation of electrical power. In the past some cement plant operators have installed waste heat steam boilers in their plants and have utilized the process heat to operate a steam turbine generator set. However, the conventional steam technology has certain implicit drawbacks with respect to the cement production process. In particular, the use of the relatively low temperature grate-cooler exhaust air, available at continuously varying temperatures, ranging from 170C to 300C, involves difficulties with respect to stable steam turbine operation due to the high moisture content in the turbine exhaust and pinch point interference problems in the boiler. To overcome this drawback, exhaust air temperatures have been raised, in some cases beyond the level required for clinker burning, through additional fuel gas firing. This has increased the fuel consumption in the plant to unacceptable levels.

Figure 1 The Lengfurt Cement Heat Recovery Power Plant B. Gold Creek Power Plant

A 6.5 MW Power Plant operating an ORC was commissioned in June 1999 as a bottoming system for an RB211 gas turbine driven compressor station at Gold Creek, in Alberta, Canada. (Figure 2). The main characteristics of the plant are: (a) gross generating capacity, 7.2 MW; (b) net output to the grid, 6.5 MW, and (c) net to the grid guaranteed capacity, 5.85 MW at design conditions of +2oC ambient temperature at an elevation of 700 meters asl.

Figure 2 - ORC Power Plant at Gold Creek Compressor Station As shown in this example the ORC technology presents the potential of substantial power recovery on existing and new gas turbine driven compressor stations. Increased environmental concerns are promoting the desire for lower emissions and higher fuel economy, despite the current relatively low and stable cost of fuel. One way to increase efficiency and simultaneously limit NO2 emissions (per kW) in gas turbine power plants is to add a bottoming cycle to recover the gas turbine exhaust heat. Such combined cycle power plants with steam turbines are successfully utilized with large size gas turbines. However, this concept is less attractive with smaller gas turbines, primarily due to the high operating and installation costs per unit of power, in $/kW, of the small steam turbines. In such cases the use of ORC in the bottoming plant offers a lower cost alternative with significant advantages in maintenance and reliability.

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DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE ORC

A schematic of a bottoming plant based on an ORC is hown in Figure 3 for heat recovery from a gas turbine. The organic motive fluid is selected to optimize power output for the gas turbine exhaust or waste heat stream. Thermal energy in the waste heat stream is transferred to the ORC's vaporizer by nonflammable heat transfer fluid flowing through the Heat Recovery Unit. The ORC working fluid is vaporized by the heat transfer fluid. The resulting organic vapor drives the turbine, which is coupled to the generator, or an additional compressor. The turbine exhaust vapor flows through the recuperator, is condensed and recycled by the motive fluid pump.

Figure 3 Heat Recovery Power Plant Using an Intermediate Heat Transfer Loop A. Thermodynamic Cycle

For moderate enthalpy heat sources, ORC cycles offer many advantages over the conventional steam cycle, primarily due to the simplicity of the turbine, the control system, and the balance of plant. The distinguishing features of an ORC cycle have been treated in numerous papers (Ref. 1, 2, 3, 4). For an ORC plant the turbine and piping sizes are smaller and thus less costly due to the fluid density differences. The condensing pressure in an organic cycle is generally above atmospheric thus eliminating the need for complex vacuum and gas purging equipment that is utilized in a steam condensing cycle. Also, note that when the organic vapor expands in the turbine it becomes superheated or dryer, unlike steam which becomes wetter during the expansion process. Therefore, superheating of the organic vapor prior to delivery to the turbine is not required. Since organic fluids have a low freezing temperature, there is no freezing in the condenser, even at extremely low ambient temperatures. B. Practical Characteristics of the ORMAT ORC

The ORMAT ORC based systems on ORMAT Energy Converter (OEC) has been designed to operate in heat recovery systems converting the low-temperature heat sources available in the cement and other industries into electricity, with design criteria as follows: (a) matching of the OEC design to the specific characteristics of the heat source; (b) no interference with normal operating modes of the host cement plant, to avoid clinker production setbacks; (c) simplicity in operation and maintenance; (d) modular construction to ensure rapid implementation and low erection costs; (e) low maintenance costs and high system availability; (f) flexibility to

enable operation with changing heat source conditions, and (g) fully automated design, including automatic synchronization and safe shut-down. Other advantages should not be overlooked. In areas where water is scarce air cooling is preferred, yet this is not a practical solution with small steam turbines due to the large piping sizes and cost of the vacuum system. However, most OEC plants have utilized air-cooled condensers, which results in less maintenance, no chemicals for cooling tower water-treatment purifying, and zero pollution or waste (such as blowdown from cooling towers). Also, as pointed out, there is less concern of freezing with the OEC. The higher availability possible with the OEC units means fewer power outages resulting in a consistent and reliable power supply. Obviously, the ability to perform all of the maintenance, including overhaul, on-site is an advantage appreciated by plant owners and operators. Furthermore, small OEC systems are pre-assembled as packaged units in sizes that correspond to many gas turbine bottoming cycles. The availability of such standard packages significantly reduces the front end and custom engineering cost of the bottoming cycle. 3. APPLICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE WITH ORGANIC RANKINE CYCLE SYSTEMS A. Geothermal Power Plants

The application of ORC cycles to recover the heat from geothermal resources has steadily increased and achieved general acceptance. In these cases the geothermal heating source may be a low temperature brine, a moderate enthalpy two-phase flow, or a high enthalpy steam dominated resource. Approximately 600 MW of geothermal power plants using this technology have been installed in 18 countries. OEC modules ranging in power from 1 to 30 MW have been installed in over 40 geothermal power plants (e.g., 125 MW geothermal power plant in the Philippines). B. Early Heat Recovery Applications

OECs, using the same ORC principle, have also been used to recover industrial plant waste heat (either steam or fuel gases). For example, a 750 kW OEC unit was installed in 1985 at Union Carbide (California) utilizing industrial waste heat in the form of a mixture of superheated process steam and non-condensable gases. Similar units have also been installed in Europe, Japan and in the Peoples Republic of China. C. Microturbine For Unattended Distributed Power

Initial demonstration and commercial application of ORC cycles began over 30 years ago. ORMAT has produced over 3000 units which have been manufactured for various applications. These units, known as ORMAT Energy Converters (OEC), were designed for both high availability and low maintenance. The earliest units, with power ratings from 200 to 3000 Watts, are employed in remote areas to produce power along oil pipelines for valve operation and cathodic protection (e.g. the TransAlaska pipeline), or to supply reliable power in hazardous environments such as unattended offshore gas platforms, for telemetry, communications, control and battery charging. These units have been installed in over 55 countries and have accumulated over 150 million operating hours, with demonstrated mean time between faults (MTBF) of over 20 years. 4. CONCLUSIONS

The use of OEC has matured to a field-proven and highly reliable technology. ORC cycles have demonstrated advantages over conventional steam cycles and are particularly applicable to geothermal power plants and the recovery of waste heat, while providing distinct cost and environmental advantages.

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REFERENCES Peppink, G. Integration of an ORC in a Steam and Gas Turbine Unit (Stag Unit) with and without Facilities for District Heating, Verein Deutshcer Ingenieure Association of German Engineers) VDI Berichte 539, ORC-HP Technology, pp. 439-456, VDI Venag, Dusseldorf 1984. Bronicki, L.Y. Twenty Five Years Experience with Organic Rankine Fluids in Turbomachinery, VDI Berichte 539, ORC-HP Technology, pp. 685-696, VDI Venag, Dusseldorf 1984. Bronicki, L.Y., Experience with High Speed Organic Rankine Cycle Turbomachinery. Conference on High Speed Technology, Lappeenrata, Finland, 1988. Bronicki, L.Y., An Economically Viable, Sustainable energy Supply System Organic Vapor and Steam Organic Combined Cycles Enable Economic Utilization of Geothermal and Waste Heat Sources, World Energy Conference, Tokyo, Japan, 1995.

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