Optimizing the design of an ORC air-cooled condenser for industrial waste heat recovery: a trade-off between power consumption and required face area

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.     «

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...     »