Industrial waste heat sources have a tremendous potential for decarbonizing energy-intensive industries
and improving their economic performance. One promising approach is the implementation of Organic
Rankine Cycles (ORCs) to produce electricity by utilizing such waste heat sources. The condenser is one
of the most pivotal components of an ORC concerning its space demand, investment costs and auxiliary
power consumption. Thus, selecting the condenser type and its optimal design is crucial for an optimized
holistic ORC system. In general, water-cooled condensers can be favorable in many application cases, but
are not always viable due to the shortage of sufficient amounts of cooling water. Therefore, for many
ORC waste heat recovery projects, air-cooled condensers (ACCs) are implemented. Such ACCs are
characterized by a large face area requirement, which can be a challenge for projects realized in existing
industrial sites, since these often display limited available space for implementing the ORC project. On
the other hand, minimizing the required ACC face area results in higher pressure drops on the air side
due to a higher air velocity, leading to a significant increase in the auxiliary power demand. This work
presents a detailed methodology for modelling and optimizing the design of an ACC for a 2 MW ORC
demonstrator, which will be built in a steel factory in the Czech Republic within the scope of the EU
research project DECAGONE. A special focus lies on a detailed discussion of the trade-off between
optimizing the auxiliary power and face area demand.
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Industrial waste heat sources have a tremendous potential for decarbonizing energy-intensive industries
and improving their economic performance. One promising approach is the implementation of Organic
Rankine Cycles (ORCs) to produce electricity by utilizing such waste heat sources. The condenser is one
of the most pivotal components of an ORC concerning its space demand, investment costs and auxiliary
power consumption. Thus, selecting the condenser type and its optimal design is crucial f...
»