Energy Conversion and Management 64 (2012) 263272

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Energy Conversion and Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

A novel design approach for small scale low enthalpy binary geothermal
power plants
Roberto Gabbrielli
Dipartimento di Ingegneria dellEnergia e dei Sistemi, Facolt di Ingegneria, Universit di Pisa, Largo L. Lazzarino, 56126 Pisa, Italy

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 1 February 2012
Received in revised form 25 April 2012
Accepted 27 April 2012
Available online 26 September 2012
Keywords:
Off-design modelling
Binary geothermal power plants
Organic Rankine Cycle
Design optimization

a b s t r a c t
In this paper a novel design approach for small scale low enthalpy binary geothermal power plants is proposed. After the suction, the hot water (brine) superheats an organic uid (R134a) in a Rankine cycle and,
then, is injected back underground. This fact causes the well-known thermal degradation of the geothermal resource during the years. Hence, the binary geothermal power plants have to operate with conditions that largely vary during their life and, consequently, the most part of their functioning is
executed in off-design conditions.
So, as the novel approach here proposed, the design temperature of the geothermal resource is selected
between its highest and lowest values, that correspond to the beginning and the end of the operative life
of the geothermal power plant, respectively. Hence, using a detailed off-design performance model, the
optimal design point of the geothermal power plant is evaluated maximizing the total actualized cash
ow from the incentives for renewable power generation. Under different renewable energy incentive
scenarios, the power plant that is designed using the lowest temperature of the geothermal resource
always results the best option.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The exploitation of geothermal energy that is considered a
renewable power source is limited in very narrow zones, where
it is possible to nd geothermal sources with high temperature
at low depth that can be used economically. During last years, in
order to enlarge the use of renewable power sources, some geothermal wells characterized by low temperature liquid-dominated
sources that in the past were not considered suitable for power
generation, have been planned to be valorised from the energy
point of view. For this kind of geothermal sources, where watersteam cycle cannot be practically adopted, the application of closed
binary Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is considered technically and
economically feasible. The hot brine is sucked from the well, it is
cooled during the heating of a suitable organic uid and, nally,
it is injected back underground.
As well known, the injection of the cold brine causes the temperature reduction of the geothermal resource through the years.
This phenomenon can become particularly critical during long
operative life of low enthalpy binary ORCs. Indeed, in this kind of
power plants also temperature decreases of few degrees can imply
both severe operative problems to the most important equipment
and a strong degradation of their thermodynamic performances,
because they have to operate largely in off-design conditions.
Tel.: +39 050 2217138; fax: +39 050 2217150.
E-mail address: r.gabbrielli@ing.unipi.it
0196-8904/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2012.04.017

Hence, the operative problems described above require a careful

design of the geothermal power plants, in order to select the best
design conditions (such as the working uid and the functioning
pressures) in function of the well characteristics (temperature
and mass ow rate of the brine) [1].
The problem of sizing and optimizing low temperature binary
ORC geothermal power plants has been largely discussed in literature. The most part of the contributions adopts a design approach,
where the uncontrolled variables of the plant, as geothermal
source temperature, are simply assumed constant and equal to
their initial values and the design variables, as the highest pressure
of the power generation cycle, are investigated in order to optimize
a particular performance index.
A brief overview of the most meaningful recent papers about
this kind of approach is outlined in the following. In [2], a closed
Rankine cycle with internal regeneration using either ammonia
or an ammoniawater mixture as working uid has been optimized with design simulations in order to evaluate the best pressure that maximizes the thermal efciency and the specic
power output. Hence each plant parameter, such as turbine efciency, has been assumed constant. Optimal design criteria for
ORCs using low-temperature geothermal heat sources have been
proposed in [3]. Different working uids were analyzed and the design conditions concerning the evaporation and condensation temperatures of the ORC have been obtained minimizing the ratio of
total heat transfer area to total net power. In [4] the performance
analysis of an ORC system using HFC-245fa as working uid driven

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R. Gabbrielli / Energy Conversion and Management 64 (2012) 263272

Nomenclature
B
EOS
ORC
_
m
P
T
Yd

static exit pressure of expander (bar)

equation of state
Organic Rankine Cycle
mass ow rate (kg/s)
pressure (bar)
temperature (K)
Stodolas constant of the expander (m2 s2 K1)

Greek symbols
g
efciency
q
mass density (kg/m3)
p
/
mass ow coefcient, temperature form (m s K)

by waste heat was presented. The characteristics of the exhaust

heat has been changed using a design approach during the simulations in order to maximize the system efciency. Gu and Sato [5,6]
studied the supercritical cycles with internal regeneration for geothermal binary power plants to reach the maximum thermal efciency optimizing the cycle state parameters such as condensing
temperature and pressure. They investigated also different working uids for a given liquid dominated geothermal resource and
determined the most suitable for their application.
In [7], articial neural networks were used in order to optimize
the design condition of supercritical ORC-binary with a life cycle
cost approach. In [8], exergy analysis of a binary geothermal power
plant was performed using actual plant data to assess the plant
performance and identify sites of primary exergy destruction. With
a design approach, the effects of turbine inlet pressure and
temperature and the condenser pressure on the exergy and energy
efciencies, the net power output and the brine injection temperature were investigated and the trends were explained. In [9], the
effects of the thermodynamic parameters on the internally regenerative ORC performances were examined, and the thermodynamic
parameters of the ORC were optimized using the exergy efciency
as objective function by means of genetic algorithms. In [10], a
parametric optimization and performance analysis of a waste heat
recovery system at low temperature based on ORC, using several
working uids for power generation have been studied. The aim
of the study was to highlight the best working uid for the specic
application. The same authors optimized an ORC with superheating under different heat source temperatures using several performance indicators in order to evaluate the best design conditions
and the best working uid [11]. In [12], an investigation on the
parameter optimization and performance comparison of uids in
subcritical ORC and transcritical power cycle in low-temperature
binary geothermal power system has been presented. The optimization procedure was conducted with a simulation program using
ve performance indicators. With the given heat source and heat
sink conditions, performances of the working uids have been
evaluated and compared under their optimized internal operation
parameters. In [13], both the thermodynamic and the economic
optimization of a very small scale ORC in waste heat recovery
application has been presented in order to obtain the optimal sizing of the ORC with respect to different parameters. Finally in [14],
a complete optimization model of an ORC was proposed. To this
aim the authors presented detailed performance models of each
component in function of the main operative variables. The best
values of the controlled variables, such as relative working uid
mass ow rate, were obtained in order to maximize either the
power generation or the thermal efciency. Also in this case, the
uncontrolled variables, such as heat source temperature and ow
rate, were xed at their design values.

Subscripts
air
ambient air
b
brine
d
design point
geo
geothermal uid
in
inlet
n
net
off
off-design
R134a
relative to the uid R134a

All these kinds of design approach do not take into account the
effects of the resource degradation on the plant performance and,
consequently, the optimal designed geothermal power plant could
not actually result the best solution using a larger perspective over
their whole life.
In literature, the problem of the performance assessment for
ORC power plants in geothermal and waste-heat recovery applications under part load and off-design conditions has been investigated by some authors. All of them analyses the behavior of this
kind of power plants when the thermodynamic features of the heat
source and cooling sink are different from their starting values
used in the design phase. Hence, they do not discuss the problem
of the optimal design of ORC geothermal power plants when the
most part of their operative conditions is different from the design
point. In particular, in [15] once xed the design conditions, results
of performance studies for a binary pilot dual pressure cycle process with isobutane as working uid were presented. The simulations, based on a mathematical model, whose detailed
formulation is not reported by the author, were performed under
varying geouid inlet temperature and ow rate, varying ambient
conditions, varying heat exchanger fouling and varying turbine
conguration. The most meaningful result was that the decreases
in geouid temperature can be compensated for by the increase
in geouid ow. In [16], an accurate and well-described procedure
was reported to predict the ORC power plant performance under
off-design conditions when the hot brine and the cooling water
temperatures vary through the year. When the design values of
heat source and cooling water are 85 C and 25 C, respectively,
the power plant was able to maintain acceptable performances
also with temperature modications in heat source and cooling
water of about 15 C and 5 C. In [17], the impact of off-design
operation on air-cooled binary geothermal power plant, when
changes in the ambient air temperature, as well as the decline in
resource productivity over time, occur, has been examined using
Aspen Plus simulation software. The simulation results indicated
that as plant operation deviates from the design resource and
ambient scenario, its ability to convert the available energy in
the inlet brine degrades. In [18] an Aspen Plus based simulation
model of part load and off-design operation of an ORC unit for
combined heat and power in the furniture manufacturing industry
has been developed. The performances have been evaluated varying the condensation pressure and the input thermal power. Walnum et al. [19] focused on the off-design operation of ORCs for
power generation from low temperature sources and compared
the behavior of transcritical CO2 cycles and an ORC cycle with
R123 as working uid when the temperature and mass ow rate
of the heat source vary. The main result was that the ORC is very
sensitive to reduction in available heat. This required to operate
the ORC with some degrees superheat. Finally in [20] the off-design

R. Gabbrielli / Energy Conversion and Management 64 (2012) 263272

behavior of solar-geothermal hybrid plant based on ORC has been

evaluated when the solar derived thermal input varies through the
year and the thermal features of the geothermal source and cold
sink are xed and equal to their design values.
Taking into account the scientic contributions described
above, in this paper a novel approach for the optimal design of binary ORC low enthalpy geothermal power plants is proposed. Indeed, the optimal design procedure is executed taking into
account their whole operative life, that is simulated with a detailed
off-design model. On the basis of the optimization process here
proposed, the best design point is searched through the whole life
of the power plant and not only at the starting of the well exploitation as commonly executed in literature.
In particular, the design brine temperature is optimally selected
in the range between its highest and lowest values. Then, the best
conguration is highlighted using a procedure based on the maximization of the total actualized cash ows derived from green
incentives for renewable electricity. These cash ows are calculated using off-design simulations of the whole operative life of
the plants, when the brine and ambient air temperatures vary
through the years and the days, respectively.
Hence, the paper is structured in the following way: after the
description of the binary ORC and the geothermal site, that have
been taken into account as reference, the off-design simulation
model is detailed described. The results of the simulation activity
are successively presented and discussed. Then, the economic optimization and the best power plant selection are reported. Finally,
conclusions and future works are outlined.
2. The binary ORC geothermal power plant
The binary ORC geothermal power plant, that has been taken
into account as reference in the novel design procedure described
below, is composed by two circuits (Figs. 1 and 2), where the geothermal uid (brine) and the organic uid are present, respectively.
In the primary circuit, the brine is sucked at 20 bar and 160 C, that
is its original temperature before the starting of the well exploitation. Then, it is cooled in a shell and tube heat exchanger to a temperature equal to 70 C (56 in Figs. 1 and 2), that is higher than
the crystallization temperature in order to have a safe margin with
respect to the salt precipitation. Finally, it is injected back underground by the circulation pump.
In the secondary circuit, the organic uid, that is R134a, is
pumped to a supercritical pressure (12 in Figs. 1 and 2). Then, it

265

Fig. 2. Temperature-entropy diagram of the ORC (temperature of the geothermal

uid = 130 C).

is superheated in the shell and tube heat exchanger by the cooling

of the brine (23 in Figs. 1 and 2). In the expander the organic uid
expands to the condenser pressure producing electric power (34
in Figs. 1 and 2). The condensation is assured by dry air coolers
without water consumption (41 in Figs. 1 and 2). Matching cycle
to a given geothermal resource such that power output can be
maximized is a very important aspect of every optimization process of ORC. Two major and largely interrelated components of
the cycle are the working uid and the turbine. Both components
need careful consideration in order to optimize the amount of
power that can be extracted from a specic resource [21]. For the
particular features of the geothermal source considered in this paper, the supercritical conguration of the cycle and R134a as organic uid, whose critical thermodynamic conditions are
40.59 bar and 101.1 C, resulted the best options in order to maximize the design performance of the geothermal resource exploitation [22,23]. The internal regeneration in the ORC between the
outlets of the expander and pump has not been considered because
it can cause severe operative problems when the geothermal
source temperature is low.

Fig. 1. Plant layout of the binary ORC.

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R. Gabbrielli / Energy Conversion and Management 64 (2012) 263272

At the design point, the main input data of the ORC used in the
simulation analyses are:
 Gross power of the expander: 500 kW. This value is limited by
the characteristics of the geothermal heat source.
 The inlet expander pressure is 50 bar [22,23].
 The isoentropic efciency of the expander is 85% [20,22,23].
 The isoentropic efciency of the pump is 80%.
 The generator efciency is 98%.
 The approach point in the shell and tube heat exchanger
between the brine inlet and the R134a outlet is 10 C.
 The condenser pressure and temperature are 8 bar and 31 C,
respectively.
 The ambient air temperature (Tair) is equal to 15 C.

4.1. Expander
The ORC expander has been supposed to operate as sliding pressure mode with xed nozzle area [20]. Therefore, the inlet pressure
depends on the ow characteristics of the machine and can be calculated using the Stodolas ellipse approach [2628]:

_ R134ainoff
/off m

From Eq. (2) it is possible to obtain the equation which has been
implemented into the simulation model:

PR134ainoff

The geothermal source, located in the center of Italy, can be

considered at low enthalpy. As reported above, the starting temperature of the geouid is 160 C and the maximum allowable
mass ow rate that can be sucked from the geothermal well is
about 60 t/h. The injection of the cold brine is executed at 70 C
in order to avoid operative problems of salting scaling. This implies
that the geothermal source temperature decreases during its
exploitation. It has been assumed that the temperature decrease
is constant and equal to 1 C per year. Hence after 30 years of plant
operative life, the brine temperature can be estimated equal to
130 C.
The daily variability of Tair has been characterized by its stochastic distribution using measured data for three different sites
from Meteonorm Software [24]. These sites can be considered representative of three kinds of climate, where the temperatures are
on average low (cold site), medium (warm site), and high (hot site).
In this way it is possible to assess the effect of the particular climate on the results of the novel design approach here proposed.
Supposing that the availability of the power plant is 80%, the
operative hours with a particular Tair have been calculated (see
Table 1). We supposed that the plant downtimes occur as an uniform distribution during a generic year.

where:

The off-design simulation model of the binary geothermal ORC

power plant has been built with Aspen Plus simulation software.
This tool does not provide the user with specic built-in routines
for the off-design simulation of thermodynamic systems. Hence,
a number of specic Fortran routines has been included in the
model in order to obtain reliable results [25].

q
1  BR134aoff =PR134ainoff 2
/off
q
/d
1  BR134ad =PR134aind 2

3. Site characteristics

4. The off-design simulation model

p
T R134ainoff =PR134ainoff

Yd

q
_ 2R134ainoff T R134ainoff Y d B2R134aoff
m

P2R134aind  B2R134ad
P2R134aind  /2d

The Stodolas constants for the calculation of Yd have been evaluated using the values relative to the design conditions of the
expander.
The isentropic expansion efciency has been evaluated using
the simple formula reported below [29]:

"

goff


 #
_ R134ainoff qR134aind 0:1
m
gd sin 0:5p
_ R134aind qR134ainoff
m

4.2. Shell and tube supercritical heat exchanger

First, for each design point the heat exchanger has been detailed
designed from the thermo-mechanical point of view dening the
main geometry characteristics, such as tubes and tubesheet layout,
tube length, number of bafes and diameter of shell and nozzles.
Then, the heat exchanger has been inserted within the simulation
model using the option simulation mode, so that the actual overall heat transfer coefcient, the pressure losses and the thermodynamic characteristics of the outlet streams have been calculated in
function of the inlet streams for every operative condition.
4.3. Air cooler condenser
Similarly to the previous heat exchanger, the off-design performances of the air cooled condenser have been evaluated using the
option simulation mode. After the detailed thermo-mechanical
sizing of the air cooler for each design point, dening the main

Table 1
Frequency of the ambient air temperature and plant availability during a generic year for three different sites.
Temperature
(C)

Cold climate

Warm climate

Hot climate

Number of calendar
hours

%
Hours

Hours of
availability

Number of calendar
hours

%
Hours

Hours of
availability

Number of calendar
hours

%
Hours

Hours of
availability

5
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35

350.4
1051.2
1927.2
1839.6
1489.2
1314
613.2
175.2
0

4
12
22
21
17
15
7
2
0

280.32
840.96
1541.76
1471.68
1191.36
1051.2
490.56
140.16
0

13
294
1271
2063
2067
1679
1064
306
3

0.15
3.36
14.51
23.55
23.60
19.17
12.15
3.49
0.03

10.4
235.2
1016.8
1650.4
1653.6
1343.2
851.2
244.8
2.4

0
87.6
876
1401.6
1752
2190
1752
438
262.8

0
1
10
16
20
25
20
5
3

0
70.08
700.8
1121.28
1401.6
1752
1401.6
350.4
210.24

R. Gabbrielli / Energy Conversion and Management 64 (2012) 263272

geometry characteristics, such as tubes and tubesheet layout and

kind and number of fans, the outlet streams for each operative condition have been calculated evaluating the actual overall heat
transfer coefcient and the pressure losses.
4.4. Property methods
The thermodynamic and thermophysical characteristics of the
geothermal brine have been assumed equal to those of pure water.
Hence, the steam NBS/NRC tables [30] has been used for the simulation of the brine. To calculate the thermodynamic properties of
ambient air, the cubic order PengRobinson equation of state
(EOS) with Boston-Mathias alfa functions [31,32] has been
adopted. The thermodynamic properties of R134a have been calculated using simply the cubic order PengRobinson EOS [31]. The
validity of this EOS for the simulation of supercritical streams of
R134a has been conrmed comparing the data obtained from the
software with those available from the website of NIST [33]. For
every case that has been simulated, the errors concerning the most
important thermodynamic and thermophysical data between the
simulated and the actual data always resulted lower than 2%. This
fact assured the goodness of the simulated results.
4.5. Operative control in off-design conditions
In order to assure the right functioning of the plant also in offdesign conditions it has been necessary to adopt some control
rules. In particular the delivery of the R134a feed pump assures
that the cold brine temperature at the outlet of the supercritical
heat exchanger is equal to 70 C, as required for scaling problems.
Hence, it has been supposed that the pump motor is combined
with an inverter in order to assure the necessary variation of the
shaft speed. Moreover, the delivery pressure of the pump respects
the pressure throttling characteristics of the expander in accordance with the Stodolas ellipse.
The condenser fan speed and, consequently, the cooling air
mass ow rate have been assumed xed without any control possibilities [20]. Hence, the oating condenser pressure [15] has been
calculated in order to assure the complete condensation of the low

267

pressure R134a stream. So, it increases/decreases when Tair increases/decreases.

When the brine temperature decreases due to the exploitation
of the geothermal well, its mass ow rate is increased in order to
maintain practically unchanged the thermal input of the ORC as
the following expression:

_ bd
_ boff m
m

T bind  70 273
T binoff  70 273

where Tb-in-d and Tb-in-off are the values of the brine temperature relative to the design point and to a generic year through the plant life,
respectively.
5. Design conditions
Four design conditions for the ORC geothermal power plant
have been compared (Fig. 3) in the successive optimization
procedure. In particular, Tb-in-d assumes the following values:
160 C, 150 C, 140 C and 130 C. The rst value regards the case
when the design condition corresponds to the starting life of the
plant, the second design temperature is that after 10 years of
running, the third design temperature is that after 20 years, and,
nally, the latter design condition corresponds to the end of the
plant operative life that has been xed equal to 30 years. For this
case, it is necessary to observe that the design pressure has been
selected equal to 45 bar in order to avoid the wet outlet of the
expander (Fig. 3).
The main results for the four design solutions are reported in
Table 2. Evidently the design net efciency decreases with Tb-in-d.
It is important to stress that the comparison among the four power
plants is executed using practically a xed thermal input. Hence,
_ bd for the lowest Tb-in-d does not mean that
the higher value of m
it is possible to use this design value also for the plant with the
highest Tb-in-d. This would imply that the thermal power extracted
from the geothermal well is much larger than the design value
required for the production of the gross 500 kW and, consequently,
the thermal annual degradation through the life would be largely
higher than 1 C per year only for this designed power plant.

Fig. 3. Pressure-enthalpy diagram of the four ORC power plants at their design point.

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R. Gabbrielli / Energy Conversion and Management 64 (2012) 263272

Table 2
Performance of the four ORC at their design point.
Tb-in-d (C)

Mass ow rate of R134a (kg/s)

Mass ow rate of geouid (kg/s)
Inlet turbine pressure (bar)
Inlet turbine temperature (C)
Surface of the heater (m2)
Gross power (kW)
Net efciency (%)

160

150

140

130

14.71
9.65
50
150
390
500
9.1

15.81
10.98
50
140
350
500
8.7

17.35
12.79
50
130
330
500
8.1

19.07
15.81
45
120
315
500
7.2

Moreover, the values of the extracted and reinjected geouid mass

ow are so low that the degradation of the mass ow does not occur. Hence, it can be assumed that the features of the geothermal
resource assure the brine mass ow exploitation required in the
following analyses.
6. Results and discussion of the off-design simulations
For each design point, the operating conditions of the ORC
geothermal power plants have been investigated through their
whole life using off-design simulations when the brine temperature (Tb-in-off) and Tair varied from 160 C to 130 C with a step of
10 C and from 5 C to 35 C with a step of 5 C, respectively.
Once xed the design point, during a generic operating year
when Tb-in-off is supposed constant, the mass ow rate of R134a
and the turbine inlet pressure increase with Tair (Figs. 4 and 5). This
is due to the fact that the condensation pressure grows when Tair is
higher and, consequently, since the specic enthalpy of R134a at
the outlet of condenser becomes lower, it is necessary more
R134a for the right cooling of the brine. The growth of the mass
ow rate of R134a and the exhaust pressure causes the corresponding growth of the inlet pressure on the basis of the Stodolas
ellipse, too. When Tb-in-off degrades through the operative life of the
plant, the mass ow rate of R134a grows largely. Its specic enthalpy at the outlet of the shell and tube heat exchanger is lower and at
xed thermal input of the ORC it is necessary evidently to increase
the mass ow rate of R134a. This implies the pressure growth due
to the mechanism of the Stodolas ellipse. The variation of mass
ow rate and pressure is larger for plants with higher Tb-in-d, because when Tb-in-off decreases it becomes more distant from the design value. It is interesting to note that for each value of Tb-in-off the
expander outlet becomes wet when Tair is higher than a specic
threshold value. Indeed, the increase of the pressure moves the
expansion line towards lower entropy values. This phenomenon
is larger for higher Tb-in-d. Due to the particular features of the centrifugal expander suitable for organic uids, the moist condition inside the expander has been considered non feasible because it can
cause severe mechanical damages to the rotor and stator, that have
been designed for dry stream [19].
For a specic design point, the net efciency (Fig. 6) always improves when the ambient temperature (i.e. the cold sink of the cycle) is lower. The degradation of Tb-in-off induces obviously a
reduction of the efciency. This reduction is larger for higher values of Tb-in-d, because the operative conditions go away from the
design values. Hence in the last operative years, when Tb-in-off is
low, the plant with the lowest design temperature is characterized
by the highest net efciency. When Tair assumes high values, the
net efciency (Fig. 6) becomes lower than zero. In this condition
the auxiliary consumption due to pumps and fan becomes higher
than the gross power produced by the expander. This does not happen when Tb-in-d assumes the lowest value. This fact demonstrates
the most suitability of this design conguration to geothermal
source degradation.

Fig. 4. Variation of the R134 mass ow rate during the life and the day. (a) Tb-in-d =
160 C, (b) Tb-in-d = 150 C, (c) Tb-in-d = 140 C, (d) Tb-in-d = 130 C.

7. Optimal geothermal plant selection

The selection of the best geothermal power plant has been executed comparing the net present value of the total income from the
electricity selling through the whole life of the plants. During the

R. Gabbrielli / Energy Conversion and Management 64 (2012) 263272

269

Fig. 5. Variation of the turbine inlet pressure during the life and the day. (a) Tb-in-d =
160 C, (b) Tb-in-d = 150 C, (c) Tb-in-d = 140 C, (d) Tb-in-d = 130 C.

rst 15 years, the income derives from the feed-in tariff for renewable power generation. After the incentive period, the electricity is
sold to the national grid with a lower price. In this context, the
plant cost of each designed alternative has not been taken into account, because it is practically equal and, consequently, does not
inuence the optimal selection. Indeed, from the mechanical point
of view, each equipment has been designed obviously considering

Fig. 6. Variation of the net efciency during the life and the day. (a) Tb-in-d = 160 C,
(b) Tb-in-d = 150 C, (c) Tb-in-d = 140 C, (d) Tb-in-d = 130 C.

the most severe operating condition during the whole life. For
example, the most critical couple of values of pressure and temperature, that are located just at the inlet of the shell and tube heat exchanger, has been taken into account for the denition of the tube
thickness. The pressure, that can assume high values, is practically

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R. Gabbrielli / Energy Conversion and Management 64 (2012) 263272

Fig. 7. Annual plant capacity factor during the plant life for three sites (cold, warm
and hot).

the most important mechanical design parameter. On the contrary,

variations of the temperature imply slight modication of the
allowable stress of the materials. Taking into account that when
the expander outlet is wet the ORC binary plant has to be stopped
in order to avoid mechanical damages of the expander, the maximum design pressure value is practically limited to about 80 bar
for each power plant. Moreover, the size of the heater, and that
of the air cooled condenser and turbine are characterized by a contrary trend with respect the Tb-in-d. If the heater of the plant with
the lowest Tb-in-d has the lowest size, its condenser and its turbine
are the largest, because the thermal power released to the environment and the R134a design mass ow are the largest, respectively.
The civil construction cost, due to the building and to the site refurbishment, evidently does not change between the power plants,
because the overall size of the plant can be considered the same.
Hence on the complex these different costs do not practically affect
the overall capital cost and, consequently, the construction and
installation cost of each design conguration does not vary. Even
the maintenance cost of each plant can be considered practically
the same between the four options analyzed.
The net present value has been evaluated using a discount rate
equal to 6%, and considering three different feed-in tariffs for geo-

Fig. 8. Annual production of electricity during the plant life for three sites (cold,
warm and hot).

thermal electricity production until the 15th year. After the 15th
year the electricity selling revenue has been considered equal to
101 /MWh [34]. In this way it is possible to evaluate the effect
of the renewable power incentive scenario on the selection of best
geothermal power plant design conguration. Due to the plant
stoppages cited above, the plant capacity factor, whose trend is reported in Fig. 7, is lower than the expected value due to the failures. The geothermal power plant designed with the lowest Tb-ind is characterized by the highest capacity factor, because it is more
suitable to face the decline of the brine temperature. The capacity
factor of the other options becomes lower than 1020% at the end
of the operative life. Hence, their operation does not result practically useful after the 2025th year.
Using the net power produced, it is possible to evaluate the annual production of electricity, as reported in Fig. 8. The capacity
factor and the net efciency decrease through the years and, consequently, the electricity production is characterized by a similar
trend. During the rst years of operation, the plant designed with
Tb-in-d equal to 130 C has a lower productivity due to its lower ef-

R. Gabbrielli / Energy Conversion and Management 64 (2012) 263272

Table 3
Total production of electricity and net present value during the whole plant life for
each incentive scenario and for each site.
Sizing
Tb-in-d (C)

Total production of
electricity (GWh)

Net present value (M)

Incentive:
120 /MWh

Incentive:
200 /MWh

Incentive:
250 /MWh

Cold climate
130
69.70
140
58.34
150
53.69
160
54.54

3.61
3.48
3.37
3.40

5.39
5.35
5.26
5.28

6.57
6.53
6.44
6.45

Warm climate
130
64.18
140
49.74
150
45.17
160
47.45

3.35
3.14
3.02
3.11

5.01
4.90
4.80
4.88

6.04
6.00
5.90
5.99

Hot climate
130
140
150
160

3.12
2.79
2.70
2.84

4.68
4.41
4.33
4.48

5.65
5.43
5.34
5.50

58.82
42.33
38.73
42.45

ciency, but the degradation of its production is weaker than that of

the other plants.
Finally, in Table 3 the total production of electricity and the net
present value for each designed plant are summarized. For each
kind of site considered, the plant with the lowest Tb-in-d always results the best option as each renewable energy incentive scenario.
The total production of electricity is largely higher than those of
the others, even if the NPV is only slightly larger, because most
of its production is executed after several years (please note that
it is more effective to produce electricity during the rst 15 years,
when the incentive is higher and the discount rate factor is lower).
This fact conrms that this plant results more suitable for brine
and ambient air temperature modications than the others.
8. Conclusions and future work
In this paper a novel approach for the design point selection of
small scale ORC binary geothermal power plants has been proposed. Four design points relative to different values of the brine
temperature during geothermal well exploitation have been compared from the economic point of view using off-design simulations of the whole operating life.
Maintaining constant the thermal input from the geothermal
source implies that the operative condition becomes very far from
the design point. In particular, the large increase of the R134a mass
ow rate and, consequently, of the highest pressure implies severe
modications of the expander outlet. Indeed, this can result wet so
that the plant cannot operate in order to safe the mechanical components of the expander. So, the availability of the geothermal
plants results quite low during the last 10 years of running.
When the liquid-dominated geothermal resource is affected by
thermal degradation, the novel design approach here proposed results very effective to highlight the power plant conguration that
is characterized by best economic performance. It has been demonstrated that it is always better to size ORC power plants using
the brine temperature corresponding to the end of the well exploitation as design value rather than the initial value as commonly
executed in the sector. Hence, it is more important to have higher
performances through the plant life than at the design point.
When high temperatures of brine are used for the sizing, large
repowering (re-sizing) of the power plants is required in order to
assure high plant capacity factor also after resource thermal degradation. Hence, taking into account some uncertainties about design
problem proposed in this paper, such as the actual geothermal res-

271

ervoir lifetime and the geouid behavior, the investor can actually
select or not the most protable power plant that is sized with the
end-of-life brine temperature in accordance with his risk approach.
Future analyses could concern the possibility to integrate other
renewable power sources, such as biomass and solar thermal
power, in order to improve the thermodynamic performance of
the plants, for example increasing the brine temperature to more
acceptable values. In this way, the capacity factor of the power
plants could largely improve. This integration, in particular with
solar thermal power, could be particularly useful when the
ambient air temperature assumes the highest values (i.e. the highest irradiation periods), causing the most severe operating conditions. Further, the effect of different control rules on the plant
performances could be assessed. For example, it would be interesting to evaluate the operating behavior of the geothermal power
plants when the brine mass ow rate is kept constant through
the life of the plants. In this way the thermal input of ORC is
decreasing and, consequently, the geothermal source degradation
is lower. Finally, it will be interesting to analyze the effect of the
wet air during the rainy days on the off-design behavior of the
condenser. This aspect, that has not been taken into account in this
paper, might be advantageous to raise the cooling effect.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Irene Fastelli (Enel Engineering
and Innovation, Technical Research Area, Pisa, Italy) for her support
provided during the research, a part of which has been described in
this paper. Moreover the author wants to thank the reviewers for
their useful contributions to improving this paper.
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