TY - JOUR
TI - Energy analysis of Organic Rankine Cycles for biomass applications
AU - Algieri Angelo
AU - Morrone Pietropaolo
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2015
VL - 19
IS - 1
SP - 193
EP - 205
PT - Article
AB - The present paper aims at analysing the performances of Organic Rankine  Cycles (ORCs) adopted for the exploitation of the biomass resulting from the  pruning residues in a 3000 hectares district in Southern Italy. A parametric  energy analysis has been carried out to define the influence of the main  plant operating conditions. To this purpose, both subcritical and  transcritical power plants have been examined and saturated and superheated  conditions at the turbine inlet have been imposed. Moreover, the effect of  the working fluid, condensation temperature, and internal regeneration on  system performances has been investigated. The results show that ORC plants  represent an interesting and sustainable solution for decentralised and  small-scale power production. Furthermore, the analysis highlights the  significant impact of the maximum temperature and the noticeable effect of  internal regeneration on the performances of the biomass power plants.