Applied Energy 86 (2009) 2162–2170

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Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Alternative ORC bottoming cycles FOR combined cycle power plants

R. Chacartegui *, D. Sánchez, J.M. Muñoz, T. Sánchez
Thermal Power Group (GMTS), University of Seville, Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros, Camino de los Descubrimientos s/n, 41092 Sevilla, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this work, low temperature Organic Rankine Cycles are studied as bottoming cycle in medium and
Received 20 September 2008 large scale combined cycle power plants. The analysis aims to show the interest of using these alternative
Received in revised form 24 February 2009 cycles with high efficiency heavy duty gas turbines, for example recuperative gas turbines with lower gas
Accepted 25 February 2009
turbine exhaust temperatures than in conventional combined cycle gas turbines. The following organic
Available online 26 March 2009
fluids have been considered: R113, R245, isobutene, toluene, cyclohexane and isopentane. Competitive
results have been obtained for toluene and cyclohexane ORC combined cycles, with reasonably high glo-
Keywords:
bal efficiencies.
ORC
Organic Rankine Cycle
The paper is structured in four main parts. A review of combined cycle and ORC cycle technologies is
Combined cycle presented, followed by a thermodynamic analysis of combined cycles with commercial gas turbines and
Heavy duty gas turbines ORC low temperature bottoming cycles. Then, a parametric optimization of an ORC combined cycle plant
is performed in order to achieve a better integration between these two technologies. Finally, some eco-
nomic considerations related to the use of ORC in combined cycles are discussed.
Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction intermediate temperature thermosolar power plants with a carbon

Combined cycles comprise a topping cycle with high maximum
temperature and a bottoming cycle with low or intermediate max-
imum temperature. For power production with gas turbine based
combined cycles, virtually all bottoming cycles are Rankine cycles
with steam due to very attractive features such as good thermal
integration with the topping gas turbine cycle, high reliability
and considerable past industry experience. In the same category,
the Kalina cycle [1,2] using a zeotropic mixture of ammonia and
water has also been proposed though it has not reached commer-
cial success yet. This cycle presents a very interesting evaporation
process at variable temperature that allows for a more efficient
heat recovery process from the topping cycle.
In the low temperature range, bottoming Organic Rankine Cy-
cles (ORC) constitute another alternative, having shown good ther-
modynamic performance for low maximum temperature
bottoming cycles [3–5]. This interest in organic working fluids
for low temperature Rankine cycles is not new and it has been pro-
posed for different applications: renewable energy and low tem-
perature heat recovery [3–16]. Moreover, small scale ORC power
plants are presently commercially available [11–13].
ORCs bottoming cycles in combined power plants have been
proposed previously by Najjar [17], who analyzed a combination
of ORC fluids and cycle layouts that resulted in a global combined
cycle efficiency slightly below 45.2%, by Chacartegui et al. [18] for
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 954467615; fax: +34 954487243.
E-mail address: ricardo@esi.us.es (R. Chacartegui).
dioxide topping cycle, and by Invernizzi et al. [19], Caresana et al.
[20] and Yari [21] for microturbine combined cycles. Despite these
numerous works, a careful review in this subject shows that com-
bined cycles comprising modern high efficiency gas turbines, like
recuperative gas turbines, and ORCs in the medium and large scale
power generation have not been analyzed carefully previously.
Thus, the use of ORC bottoming cycles incorporated into the ex-
haust of recuperated gas turbines or very high pressure ratio gas
turbines, which are characterized by their very high efficiency
but low exhaust temperature (TET), are studied in this work. As
shown later, this combination allows for high efficiencies to be
achieved, which are similar to that of modern gas and steam com-
bined cycles but apply to topping cycles with lower TITs.
The document has been organized in four main parts: first, an
analysis of the main characteristics of ORC cycles; second, the
study of the integration of some commercial gas turbines with dif-
ferent bottoming ORC cycles; third, a parametric optimization of
the combined cycle to improve its global efficiency and, finally, a
summary of economic considerations related to the use of ORCs
in a combined cycle.
2. ORC low temperature bottoming cycles
2.1. ORC cycles. Preliminary considerations
The aforementioned works include analyses that focus on fluid
selection and optimization of cycle layout. For the former, a great
number of organic fluids have been studied [6,8], searching

0306-2619/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2009.02.016
 R. Chacartegui et al. / Applied Energy 86 (2009) 2162–2170 2163

Nomenclature

a sound speed (m/s) RC Recuperative

CC combined cycle ST steam
CHEX cyclohexane T temperature (K)
Cp constant pressure specific heat (kJ/kJK) T3 bottoming cycle maximum temperature (K)
DPB payback TIT turbine inlet temperature (K)
GT gas turbine TET turbine exhaust temperature (K)
HRSG heat recovery steam generator UFL upper flammability limit (% in an air mixture)
HRVG Heat Recovery Vapour Generator VT vapor turbine
h enthalpy (kJ/kg) W cycle net specific work (kJ/kg)
IC intercooled
IC–RH–RC intercooled–reheat–recuperative Greek symbols
IRR internal rate of return q density (kg/m3)
IT ignition temperature (K) l dynamic viscosity (kg/ms)
LFL low flammability limit (%in an air mixture) c specific heat ratio
LHV low heat value g efficiency (LHV)
m mass flow rate (kg/s)
ORC Organic Rankine Cycle Subscripts
ORCRCC ORC recuperated gas turbine combined cycle layout BC bottoming cycle
P pressure (bar) e gas turbine exhaust gases
PR pressure ratio crit critical
R recuperator effectiveness max maximum
RH reheat TC topping cycle

features like high boiling temperatures that increase cycle effi-
ciency [7,14]: propane [4,14], n-pentane[4], n-butane [4,5,10,14],
n-pentane–n-butane mixtures [4], siloxanes mixtures [4], toluene
[5,7], cyclohexane [5], ammonia–water mixtures [5,9], Benzene
[7], p-Xylene [7] and cryogens such as HCFC-123 [3], R123
[7,10,14], benzene [9], Rl1 [9], R12 [9], Rl34a [9,14], R113
[7,9,10,14], R245ca [10,14], R245fa [14,15]. Among these fluids,
R113 [10,14], toluene [5] or more complex fluids as p-Xylene [7],
siloxanes mixtures [4] or alkylbenzenes [16] are regarded as high
efficiency ORC options. Alternatively, binary or ternary mixtures
with multi-component non-azeotropic working fluids, featuring
non-isothermal heat addition and heat rejection [4], i.e. evapora-
tion/condensation at variable temperature, increase the efficiency
of the heat recovery process.
In terms of cycle optimization, modifications of plant layout
like, for instance, the addition of an internal recuperator when
the turbine expansion line end point is in the superheated vapour
region [4,6,10,16,19], can increase the efficiency.
k
In this work the following organic fluids are analyzed: R113,
R245 fa, isobutene, toluene, cyclohexane and isopentane. These flu-
ids have been selected taking into account pressure and tempera-
ture constraints imposed by the minimum condenser pressure, the
topping cycle exhaust temperature and fluids stability issues. Bin-
ary mixtures have not been considered in this paper although they
are regarded as a very interesting option, as mentioned above.
2.2. Calculations procedure and assumptions
All the organic fluids analyzed in this work are dry fluids with
positive slope of the saturated vapour curve, and they are applied
to a subcritical bottoming cycle where the turbine intake is close to
the saturation curve but still in the superheated vapour region.
Fig. 1 illustrates the T–s diagram of such cycle, where the dotted
and solid lines apply to the topping Brayton and ORC bottoming cy-
cles, respectively. This cycle in Fig. 1 is applicable to all the analysis
shown in this work, except where explicitly indicated, and its per-

Fig. 1. Reference combined cycle layout and T–s diagram.

2164 R. Chacartegui et al. / Applied Energy 86 (2009) 2162–2170

Table 1 ganic fluids at high temperature and pressure varies from one fluid
ORC cycles data. to another and influences the power plant design, since its perfor-
Pump efficiency (%) 80 mance is conditioned to the temperature and pressure ranges
Mechanical efficiency (%) 98 where the organic compound is chemically stable. Table 2 presents
TIT (K) 480–600 values for maximum temperature and pressure that preserve some
Turbine efficiency (%) 87
Heat exchanger pressure losses (%) 2
common organic fluids from degradation. According to this infor-
Heat exchanger efficiency (%) 0.9 mation, pressure and temperature in this work will always be con-
Turbine inlet pressure TIP (bar) 15–35 strained by the corresponding values that guarantee that fluid
degradation is avoided [5,10–14].

formance is evaluated through a stationary lumped volume model
of each component, with the following general assumptions and
data in Table 1:
 Mass and energy conservation is applied to each ORC cycle
component.
 Real fluid behaviour is assumed for the working fluid. Properties
of all the fluids are calculated with EES (Engineering Equation
Solver) software.
 Performance curves for each major component in the ORC cycle
are extrapolated from data of similar equipment in real facilities.
 Gas turbines, and their components, are modelled in Section 4
by extrapolating performance maps from real gas turbines com-
ponents (or estimated from similar equipment when not
available).
Since for dry fluids in these conditions, increasing the turbine
inlet temperature at a given pressure reduces the efficiency of
the bottoming cycle, and therefore the combined cycle [9], the
optimized turbine inlet conditions are expected to be close to the
saturated vapour line [6,18].
A key factor of organic working fluids that must be taken into
account is the stability of the mixture [5,22]. The degradation of or-
2.3. ORC equipment. Preliminary analysis
The properties of the working fluid affect the design of major
equipments in the bottoming cycle: Heat Recovery Vapour Gener-
ator (HRVG), heat exchangers and vapour turbines. Table 3 pre-
sents the properties of a number of selected fluids at some key
points of the ORC cycle shown in Fig. 1, which are representative
of the operating conditions of the ORC in the combined cycle. Va-
pour turbine inlet temperature and pressure have been selected
as high as possible complying with the following constraints:
 Stability limits are not exceeded, Table 1.
 The expansion line of the turbine does not penetrate the bipha-
sic zone.
Some differences between fluids must be noted in Table 3, for
example the heat transport capacity which is the product of den-
sity and heat capacity at constant pressure. This product is similar
for all the organic fluids considered and different to steam, what af-
fects the heat exchanger design to be considered during the eco-
nomic analysis in Section 5.
The performance of pumps and turbines, i.e. turbomachinery, is
similarly affected by the properties of the working fluid [6,19,23].
In particular, the following differences are appreciated in Table 3:

 The speed of sound, a, is higher for toluene, although values for

Table 2 all three organic fluids are lower than steam.
Temperature and pressure stability limits for some organic fluids.
 Density at points 3 and 4 is very high for the organic cycles con-
Working fluid Tmax (K) Tcrit (K) Pmax (bar) sidered; around 7–8 times higher than steam for toluene and
R113 525 487.2 – cyclohexane, and 14 times higher for R113.
Cyclohexane 542 553.6 35  Finally, turbine specific work – enthalpy drop – is very low in
Toluene 581.5 591.7 35 ORCs if compared with steam; 4% of the specific work of a steam
Isobutane 600 407.8 –
turbine with equivalent inlet/outlet conditions if R113 is used,
R245fa 500 427.2 –
17% for toluene and 14% for cyclohexane.

Table 3
Fluids properties at different points of the ORC (legend in Fig. 1).

Point P (bar) T (K) l(10 5) (kg/ms) q (kg/m3) Cp (kJ/kJK) c h (kJ/kg) a (m/s)

Toluene 1 0.049 303.2 51.8 859.1 1.69 1.324 150.4 –

2 32.86 303.9 51.3 859.3 1.72 1.34 145.7 –
3 31.56 570 1.65 122.7 3.67 1.692 598.6 119.8
4 0.05 399 0.94 0.1418 1.51 1.064 388.1 195.4
Cyclohexane 1 0.16 303.1 81.1 768.5 1.84 1.38 41.8 –
2 32.7 304.7 79.1 770.5 1.85 1.366 47.1 –
3 32.6 536 1.64 138.4 4.66 1.782 753.4 110.1
4 0.169 396.8 0.92 0.4331 1.78 1.06 574.6 203
R113 1 0.54 303.2 64.4 1549 0.92 1.001 61.1 –
2 28.2 307.3 60.4 1540 0.93 1.004 64.9 –
3 27.1 472 1.93 239.2 1.53 1.822 301.8 82.6
4 0.56 359.2 1.22 3.599 0.72 1.072 250.3 128.6
Steam 1 0.04 303.2 79.8 995.6 4.183 1 125.7
2 62.5 303.7 78.9 998.2 4.167 1.017 133.5
3 61.2 813 3 16.63 2.358 1.327 3517 678.2
4 0.04 303.9 1 0.031 1.893 1.33 2301
 R. Chacartegui et al. / Applied Energy 86 (2009) 2162–2170 2165

A lower speed of sound limits maximum stage velocity and Table 5

Efficiency and power ratio in conventional and ORC combined cycles with commercial
expansion ratio and, thus, it can be expected that more turbine gas turbines.
stages be needed compared to a steam turbine. However, if density
and specific enthalpy are now considered, the estimated size of a Efficiency/power ratio (%) Toluene CHEX R113 Steam

vapour turbine with similar power capacity would be 20% smaller General electric PG-7251 54.9/32.7 53.4/30.8 49.9/26 55.1/33
for toluene, 16% smaller for cyclohexane and 40% bigger for R113, Siemens V 94.3A 55.8/31.5 54.3/29.6 50.9/24.9 55.4/31
Alstom GT 24/26 55.1/30.7 53.7/28.9 50.4/24.2 55.5/31.2
related to the reference steam turbine. These effects on turbine Mitsubishi M701 G 56.3/29.8 54.9/28 51.7/23.5 56/29.4
performance explain that existing steam turbines must be rede- GE LM-6000 dry 57.8/27.6 56.5/26 53.5/21.9 54.2/22.9
signed to fit the requirements of ORC fluids as shown by Invernizzi Rolls-Royce WR 21 53.3/22.7 52.2/21 50/17.6 48.1/14.4
et al who presented preliminary designs for two and three stages Solar Mercury 50 54.9/29.8 53.4/27.9 50.4/23.6 48.9/21.3
axial ORC turbines working with different fluids and achieving effi-
ciencies over 0.8 and 0.9, respectively [19,24].
Finally it must be quoted that although volumetric expansion tures are typically found in recuperative gas turbines and/or high
machines have been by authors like Badr et al. [25,26] for low pressure ratio gas turbines like the GE LM-6000 model. Further-
power output cycles, they have been disregarded in this work more, the efficiency of the resulting cycle is even higher than a sin-
due to the output capacity of interest. gle pressure conventional steam cycle and approaches that of a
multiple pressure combined plant with steam. This performance
3. Low temperature bottoming cycles with commercial gas of ORCs cycles combined with low exhaust temperature gas tur-
turbines bines sets the path for further modelling to examine the maximum
potential efficiency of these systems.
In this section, combined cycles that use commercially available
gas turbines and ORC bottoming cycles are analyzed. The purpose 4. Combined cycle optimization
of such analysis is to evaluate the interest of the proposed bottom-
ing when integrated with ordinary commercial gas turbines. For 4.1. Preliminary considerations
the ORC cycle, the scheme shown in Fig. 1 is considered. For the
topping cycle, the following gas turbine engines, whose main char- This Section continues the previous analysis where the interest
acteristics are shown in Table 4 [27,28,33], are evaluated: of combining low temperature bottoming cycles with low exhaust
temperature gas turbines has been shown. A parametric optimiza-
 Four modern heavy duty gas turbines: GE PG-7251, Siemens tion of the bottoming cycle depending on the turbine inlet temper-
V94.3A, Alstom GT 24/26 and MHI M 701 G. ature of the topping cycle is now presented. It must be noted that
 A high efficiency aeroderivative gas turbine, GE LM-6000 (dry). the gas turbines used in this Section do not necessarily correspond
 Two recuperated gas turbines: Rolls-Royce WR 21, with inter- to any of the engines listed previously since their working cycle, i.e.
cooled compression, and Solar Mercury 50. operating parameters, are subjected to modifications in order to
optimize the combined plant. The performance of these generic
These gas turbines have been incorporated into combined ORC gas turbines is evaluated by means of a stationary lumped volume
cycles following the layout in Fig. 1. The performance of these cy- model where the behaviour of each component is estimated from
cles has been evaluated as described in Section 2.2., with the cor- performance maps of similar equipment used in conventional en-
responding gas turbine rated performance in Table 4 and HRVG gines. It must be noted that, although the engine performance
pressure drop corrections extrapolated from manufacturers’ data. maps included the effect of turbine cooling in Section 3, the com-
Results are shown in Table 5 for different working fluids, where ponent approach used in this Section 4 does not account for this ef-
the power ratio is defined as the ratio of bottoming cycle to com- fect. Nevertheless, the error introduced by not considering turbine
bined cycle power. cooling affects similarly to all the plants compared below and,
Table 5 shows that there is no interest in combining commercial therefore, relative efficiencies between them are not affected.
heavy duty gas turbines with high TET and bottoming ORCs, since The selection of cycles with dry organic fluids and the con-
the resulting combined cycle is less efficient than a conventional straint of working close to saturated vapour conditions at turbine
gas and steam cycle. It should be noted that, even though using a inlet have the advantage of allowing for a higher expansion or
toluene ORC and a conventional steam cycle seems to be similarly the use of a recuperator in the topping cycle, as said above (though
efficient, such values are for a single pressure HRSGs. When multi- this latter solution shall be carefully analyzed since it can have the
ple pressure steam cycles are considered, as it is typical in industry, effect of either increasing or reducing the combined cycle effi-
the efficiency of the conventional gas and steam combined cycle ciency). An 80% maximum effectiveness has been assumed for
increases substantially [29] and can be as high as 58%. the HRVG and heat exchangers, with a minimum HRGV stack tem-
However, the last three rows in Table 5 show that, for certain perature set above the water dew point at 350 K.
fluids, ORCs perform best when they are combined with high effi- Genetic algorithms are applied to the optimization process
ciency gas turbines with low exhaust temperature TET. Such fea- [30,31–32] and, as a result, maximum combined cycle efficiencies

Table 4
Gas turbines. Main characteristics.

GE PG-7251 Siemens V 94.3A Alstom GT 24/26 MHI M701G GE LM-6000 RR WR 21 Solar Mercury 50

me (kg/s) 448.4 644 562 737.1 (inlet) 127 73 17.9

PR 18.5 17 30 20 29.1 16.2 9.9
TIT (K) 1675 1623 1528 1703 1533 1255 –
TET (K) 896 857 913 860.2 711 629 650
Net power (MW) 184.4 260 262 334 43.4 25.252 4.6
Efficiency (%) 36.92 38.2 38.2 39.55 41.8 41.2 38.5
2166 R. Chacartegui et al. / Applied Energy 86 (2009) 2162–2170

have been obtained for each gas turbine inlet temperature and
each working fluid in the bottoming cycle.

4.2. Optimization results

Results obtained for the ORC and recuperated gas turbine com-
bined cycle (ORCRCC), Fig. 1, are shown in Fig. 2 along with those of
the reference steam cycle. Ambient conditions are ISO and compo-
nent efficiencies are taken from Table 1 again.
Fig. 2 shows that the combined cycle with toluene performs
best in the temperature range under consideration, with the cyclo-
hexane cycle close behind, achieving total efficiencies that are 4%
points higher than for single pressure conventional combined cy-
cles using steam. Results obtained with other fluids considered in
Table 2, like R245fa and isobutene, are not shown due to their
worse performance caused by their lower critical pressures and
higher losses at the HRVG. The higher efficiency with toluene is
owed to the better performance of the economizer in the heat Fig. 3. HRVG heat transfer diagram for the toluene ORC combined cycle and various
recovery process, with closer heating – solid line – and cooling – gas turbine TITs.
dotted line – lines than the other ORCs for this temperature range,
Fig. 3.
Table 6
Table 6 shows efficiencies and power ratios, defined as in Table Efficiency and power ratio as a function of gas turbine TIT.
5, for cyclohexane and toluene as a function of TIT. It can be appre-
Efficiency/power ratio (%) CHEX Toluene
ciated that the bottoming cycle gains importance as TIT decreases,
thus partially compensating for the loss in topping cycle power due TIT (K) 1573 55.08/26.17 56.17/28.71
1500 53.91/27.34 55.03/30.01
to its lower TIT.
1400 52.14/29.17 53.29/32.07
The layout shown in Fig. 1 is now modified by adding inter- 1300 50.15/31.33 51.24/35.68
cooled compression, as in the WR 21 gas turbine, and reheat, as 1200 47.87/33.93 48.42/42.32
in the GT 24/26 gas turbine, to the recuperative Brayton topping 1100 45.14/38.69 45.2/51.83
cycle. Figs. 4 and 5 show the T–s diagram and efficiency of the
resulting cycle, respectively. In the latter, it can be seen that the
efficiency of the optimized combined cycle is equivalent to that The operating parameters obtained from the optimization pro-
of state of the art multiple pressure gas and steam combined cycle cess for TIT 1300 K and 1573 K are collected in Table 7, showing
with higher TIT. As mentioned before, for each turbine inlet tem- pressure and temperature at some key points of the cycle. The
perature in Fig. 5, the pressure ratio of the gas turbine has been maximum temperatures of the organic fluid are lower than in pre-
optimized to achieve maximum efficiency. vious studies [5,7,15–16] or commercially available applications
Fig. 5 shows that the efficiency of the modified combined cycle [12], and the optimum pressure ratios of the topping cycle are low-
is up to 3% points higher than conventional single pressure steam er for the simple recuperative gas turbine than for the non recuper-
combined cycles, depending on the working fluid. However, the ative Brayton cycle or the recuperative gas turbine with reheat and
most interesting conclusion is not only that high efficiencies are intercooling.
attainable with toluene ORCs but also that these efficiencies are Finally, it must be highlighted that security must be a primary
possible with moderate TIT – see analysis shown in Figs. 2 and 5. concern when working with flammable fluids like cyclohexane,
Thus, adapting gas turbines with lower TIT or redesigning modern toluene or isobutene, and risk control must be involved as a prior-
heavy duty gas turbines for combined cycle applications with a ity in the plant design. However, in the proposed toluene ORCS cy-
lower TIT can be an interesting solution to reduce gas turbine man- cle, maximum bottoming cycle temperatures are far from the
ufacturing/maintenance costs and reduce NOx emissions. ignition point, Table 7, and therefore safety is expected to be
guaranteed.

.
4.3. Combined cycle. Sensitivity analysis to gas turbine TIT

In order to complete the previous optimization process of the

combined cycles, a sensitivity analysis to turbine inlet temperature
. has been performed. All the operating parameters of the plant,
both for the topping and bottoming cycles, except turbine inlet
temperature are considered to remain constant at their optimized
. values shown in Table 7 for 1300 K. TIT is then varied in a range
η

determined by the 80% maximum effectiveness of the HRVG men-

tioned previously. This analysis represents off design operation
with turbine inlet temperature control and its results are shown
.
in Fig. 6 – For this gas turbine layout, toluene seems to be more
sensible than cyclohexane and R113 to decreasing TIT.

4.4. Combined cycle analysis. Thermodynamic conclusions

Fig. 2. Combined cycle efficiency as a function of gas turbine TIT. Optimized The previous results show that the toluene ORCRCC achieves a
bottoming cycle and simple recuperative Brayton topping cycle. maximum efficiency that is around 3% higher than that of
 R. Chacartegui et al. / Applied Energy 86 (2009) 2162–2170 2167

Fig. 4. IC–RH–RC (intercooled, reheat, recuperative) combined cycle layout and T–s diagram.

[34]. The efficiency of the toluene ORC combined cycle is also sim-
. ilar to other alternative combined cycle technologies like the Kali-
na cycles, 55–59.6% [35–37], and higher than, for example, the
. cycle resulting from adding an ammonia Rankine cycle to recover
the energy from the stack gases in the HRSG of a conventional com-
. bined cycle [38]; in this latter case, the toluene ORCRCC is 2–4%
points more efficient in the 1400–1573 K TIT range.
. With respect to previous studies of power plants that include
η ORCs, the efficiency obtained by the toluene ORCRCC proposed in
. this work is more than 10% points higher than reported by Najjar
[17] for ORC combined cycles with different organic fluids and
.
layouts.
Compared with other technologies that do not include ORCs,
.
evaporative gas turbines are predicted to achieve efficiencies close
to 60% [39], similar to the results presented here for the toluene
.
ORCRCC. Nevertheless, the benefits of the toluene ORCRCC can be
further increased by the inclusion of additional modifications in
the topping cycle, like, for instance, steam injection.
Fig. 5. Combined cycle efficiency as a function of gas turbine TIT. Optimized
bottoming cycle and IC–RH–RC Brayton topping cycle.
5. Economic considerations

The previous thermodynamic analysis and optimization must

optimized single pressure conventional combined cycles and 5% now be completed with some considerations regarding the costs
points higher than combined cycles with similar TIT reported in of ORC combined cycles. The objective of this economic analysis

Table 7
Optimum combined cycle parameters for toluene and cyclohexane bottoming cycles (legend in Figs. 1 and 3).

Air – toluene Air – cyclohexane Air – RH-IC-RC toluene Air – RH-IC-RC cyclohexane
GT TIT (K) 1300 1573 1300 1573 1300 1573 1300 1573
WTC (kJ/kg) 287 415.9 282.9 415.3 447.4 670.9 458.7 675.5
WBC (kJ/kg) 243.4 243.4 208.4 208.4 243.4 243.4 208.4 208.4
PowerTC/powerbc 2.8 3.48 3.19 3.82 3.9 4.86 4.44 5.49
mTC/mBC 2.28 1.95 2.26 1.84 2048 1.47 1955 1623
T02 (k) 587 602.8 558.1 600.7 580.2 633.9 580.5 620.7
T02p (k) 743.9 864.4 762.4 865.9 808.5 900.8 795.7 896.8
T04 (K) 782.9 929.8 813.5 932.2 871.3 974.2 854.8 972.7
T04p (k) 637.6 683.8 623.5 682.8 653.6 717.5 649.9 707.7
T3 (K) 570 570 536 536 570 570 536 536
P02 m (bar) 1.95 2268 2.13 2456
PR 10.03 10.93 8.41 10.8 20.89 31.05 22.07 32
P04 m (bar) 6613 8731 6747 8931
P1 (bar) 0022 0022 0.08 0.08 0022 0022 0.81 0.81
P2 (bar) 32.21 32.21 33.34 33.34 32.21 32.21 33.34 33.34
gcc (%) 51.24 56.17 50.15 55.08 53.75 58.72 52.8 57.88
gTC (%) 37.77 43.64 38.18 43.66 42.78 48.7 43.09 48.96
gBC (%) 34.64 34.64 32.13 32.13 34.64 34.64 32.13 32.13
2168 R. Chacartegui et al. / Applied Energy 86 (2009) 2162–2170

increase in the near term, that cannot be compensated for by

. an outstanding performance, as shown in previous Sections.
.
η ated to the working fluid in ORCs since their volume/size to power
.
Fig. 6. Combined cycle efficiency as a function of gas turbine TIT.
is to mark break-even costs for the development of this ORCRCC
technology, i.e. costs that make this technology competitive, either
at system (combined cycle) or subsystem (ORC and gas turbine)
levels.
Estimating the costs of these bottoming cycles in comparison to
conventional steam cycles, requires an evaluation of the relative
size of the bottoming cycle using organic fluids with respect to
the same cycle using steam. One criterion for doing this calculation
is to estimate the relative HRVG size in terms of total heat ex-
change area. A rough estimation of the relative HRVG size is given
in Table 8 for the cycles optimized at 1300 K TIT. The minimum
stack temperature is set again at 350 K although this constraint
only has effect with steam and R113, while, for the other fluids,
the 80% maximum heat exchanger effectiveness is the most restric-
tive constraint.
Temperatures and non dimensional total exchange area and UA
are shown in Table 8, related to the case of steam. R113 has the
minimum UA for the design conditions while cyclohexane presents
the maximum value, giving an estimated area that is twice as big
as for R113, 35% bigger than for toluene and 25% bigger than for
steam. Although the size of the power plant depends on many fac-
tors, the HRVG is the biggest equipment of the bottoming cycle
and, depending on the size of the recuperator, the biggest equip-
ment of the combined cycle too. Therefore, the A ratio given in Ta-
ble 8 can be considered as an indicator of the relative size of the
bottoming cycle with respect to the complete plant, depending
on the fluid.
From these relative sizes, an estimation of the additional cost
associated to the mass of organic fluid flowing/stored in the bot-
toming cycle can be done. Commercial prices for the South of Spain
are the following:
 1460 €/tn for cyclohexane and 1250 €/tn for toluene. R113 has
been disregarded in the economic analysis due to its very high
price, caused by the limited HCFC production and expected to
 1.52 €/tn for demineralized water [40]. Additionally, to account
for fluid losses and leakages, a 1% make up flow and three total
replacements per year have been considered.
It must be noted that these values overestimate the cost associ-
ratio is considerably smaller than in the reference steam cycle. In
addition, it is expected that the required fluid replacement be al-
most negligible with an appropriate power plant operation and
maintenance.
The distribution of capital costs in ORCRCC has been assumed to
be very similar to conventional gas and steam combined plants.
Thus, the following percentages are considered [41]: 33% gas turbo
generator sets, 10% HRSG, 10% steam turbo generator set, 20% civil
works and 27% others (instrumentation and control system, lubri-
cation system, transformers, switchboards, balance of plant equip-
ment). The same HRVG capital cost than for the steam cycle is
considered after the analysis of HRVG relative sizes, and the same
assumption is done for civil works and the rest of equipment.
Fuel and electricity mean prices are estimated at 27 €/MWt and
70 €/MWe, respectively [43]. The load factor is considered to be
0.913.
Finally, the cost of a gas turbine generator is greatly affected by
its turbine inlet temperature, since the higher the temperature the
more resistant/expensive the materials for the first turbine stages
and the more complicated the cooling system. In order to evaluate
this effect of turbine inlet temperature on the cost of the engine,
the cost per kilowatt of successive generations of the GE 9 family
has been correlated, Table 9 [42]. The cost of the recuperator in
the gas turbine engine has been taken as a fixed additional per-
centage over the non recuperative engine. In other words, as long
as the hot and cold streams have more or less constant inlet tem-
peratures (constant logarithmic mean temperature difference
LMTD) and the heat transfer coefficient does not vary substantially,
the heat exchange area depends essentially on mass flow. These
conditions apply to the recuperator of the gas turbine and, there-
fore, an additional 20% cost of the recuperative engine is consid-
ered with respect to the non recuperative engine. The precise
value of 20% is estimated from a comparison between Solar models
Centaur 50, non recuperative, and Mercury 50, recuperative [42].
These engines are almost identical, with similar pressure ratio
(10.7:1 Centaur vs. 9.9:1 Mercury), turbine inlet temperature
(1325 K Centaur vs. 1365 K Mercury), air mass flow (19 kg/s Cen-
taur vs. 18 Mercury) and power output (4600 kWe Centaur vs.
4600 kWe Mercury) and differ in the cost of the Mercury being
around 20% higher. This additional cost is taken as the reference
additional cost for a recuperative gas turbine.
Following the assumptions above, the additional costs due to
the higher prices of toluene or cyclohexane compared to steam
are compensated for by a 0.2% increase in combined cycle effi-
ciency. Fig. 7 shows the effect of ORC cost variations on IIR and
DPB, for the optimized ORC combined cycles with the IC-RH-RC
topping cycle given in Table 7.

Table 8
HRVG relative values. Cycle optimized for TIT 1300 K. Table 9
GE 9 gas turbine family. Cost per kW.
Fluids Steam CHEX R113 Toluene
Mass flow (kg/s) TIT (K) Power (MW) €/kWe
T04p (K) 898 623.5 619.7 637.6
Tstack (K) 350 361 350 355.8 GE 9E 414 1402 128.3 167.6
T3 (K) 813.1 536 472 570 GE 9EC 515 1477 172.9 168.2
T2p (K) 288.6 341 314.3 335.8 GE 9F 606.1 1533 214 180
A/Asteam 1 1.267 0.569 0.917 GE 9FA 648 1600 259.5 186
AU/(AUsteam) 1 1.269 0.541 0.819 GE 9FB 649 1700 291.5 190.7
 R. Chacartegui et al. / Applied Energy 86 (2009) 2162–2170 2169

. 6. Conclusions

. The main conclusions drawn from this work are the following:

.  The analysis of combined cycles based on commercial gas tur-

. ing and competitive option when combined with high efficiency
. analyzed, toluene and cyclohexane ORCCCs present the highest
.  These high efficiency turbines with low exhaust temperatures to
.
Fig. 7. IIR and DPB of as a function of the ORC capital cost. Toluene ORC combined
cycle. Gas turbine TITs 1300 K and 1573 K.
Setting a 15% IRR as a target value, Fig. 7 shows that toluene
ORC combined cycles are economically interesting if their capital
cost is below 3000 €/kWe for the case of TIT 1573 K or 2000 €/
kWe for TIT 1300 K. The cost of ORC cycles is presently in the range
of 950–2000 €/kWe for 250–30 kW small commercial power plants
[12], while it decreases to 1400 €/kWe for geothermal medium size
power plants with lower temperatures [18]. Bruno et al. [11] esti-
mated the ORC capital cost at 2000 €/kWe for small ORC cycles
while Invernizzi et al. [19] estimated them in 2500–3000 €/kWe
for microturbines combined cycles.
The effect of gas turbine costs for cyclohexane and toluene ORC
combined cycles with TIT 1573 K is shown in Fig. 8, where the ORC
costs have been estimated at 1400 €/kWe taking into account the
previous references and expecting decreasing costs as technology
develops. From this figure, it can be seen that gas turbine costs over
350 €/kWe, approximately, make the ORC combined cycle solution
economically uninteresting, under the previous assumptions. Since
lower gas turbine costs per kilowatt are achieved by many indus-
trial and heavy duty gas turbines, which are in the range from
200 €/kW–300 €/kW [42], the ORC combined cycle solution seems
to be economically feasible for this power generation scale, even if
20% additional costs for gas turbine modifications are included in
the analysis.
. of reliable axial vapour turbines and efficient HRVGs for these
. of these technologies can be shared with other power genera-
.
bine data and ORCs, Section 3, shows that ORCs are an interest-
gas turbines with low exhaust temperatures. Among the fluids
global efficiencies.
be used in combined cycles with ORC bottoming cycles can be
one of the following types: very high pressure ratio, like the
GE LM-6000, or recuperative gas turbines, like the RR WR21.
In both cases, the topping cycle efficiency increases, resulting
in a topping to bottoming power ratio higher than in conven-
tional combined cycles.
 Although the results with commercial gas turbine and toluene
bottoming cycle are very interesting, designing specific gas tur-
bines for these combined cycles seems to be the most interest-
ing option in the long term. These topping cycle adaptations
include recuperative cycles and the introduction of intercooling
and reheat.
 While modern conventional combined plants make use of the
latest F frame and even H frame gas turbines in the topping cycle
with turbine inlet temperatures reaching 1700 K to achieve effi-
ciencies near 60%, toluene ORC combined plants are similarly
efficient with more modest temperatures at this point, around
1573 K. Using lower than present turbine inlet temperatures,
while still attaining high combined cycle global efficiencies,
allows for a reduction in NOX emissions and manufacturing
and maintenance costs.
 The estimated increase in combined cycle cost due to the ORC
working fluids is small for toluene and cyclohexane. An increase
of just 0.2% points in combined cycle efficiency with respect to
the steam cycle would compensate for the fluid acquisition.
Moreover, combined cycle sizes and HRVG costs, estimated from
HRVG relative sizes, would be similar for steam, toluene and
cyclohexane cycles.
 Under the assumptions made in Section 5, gas turbine capital
costs under 350 €/kW and ORC capital costs under 2000 €/kW
would make ORC combined cycles be economically interesting
for medium and large scale power generation. For the first cost,
lower values are achieved by modern heavy duty gas turbines.
For the ORC, this cost seems to be affordable.
 The main challenges for the development of this technology in
medium and large scale power generation are the development
fluids and for the size of the plant considered. The development
tors, like thermal solar facilities.

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