Renewable Energy 147 (2020) 2896e2904

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Field performance evaluation of geothermal ORC power plants with a

focus on radial outflow turbines
Luca Zanellato a, Marco Astolfi b, *, Aldo Serafino a, Dario Rizzi a, Ennio Macchi b
a
Exergy SpA, Via S. Rita 14, 21057, Olgiate Olona, VA, Italy
b
Politecnico di Milano, Dipartimento di Energia, Via Lambruschini 4, 20156, Milano, Italy

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

Article history: The calculation of the performance of an ORC (Organic Rankine Cycle) and its components (in particularly
Received 29 January 2018 the turbine) is generally not a trivial task because of the lack of a proper instrumentation, the inaccuracy
Received in revised form of the available measurements and the uncertainty on fluid thermodynamic properties calculation. These
14 August 2018
limitations can greatly affect the final computed results especially for complex fluids with a small
Accepted 18 August 2018
Available online 20 August 2018
temperature drop in expansion. A strategy to solve the inconsistency of the measured data set is to verify
the energy and mass balance of each component and of the overall plant using also information related
to the geometry of specific components, primarily the turbine as well as electrical measurements. After a
Keywords:
Geothermal energy
brief description of the radial outflow turbine and of its main features, two operating geothermal ORC
Double level ORC (Organic Rankine Cycle) plants installed by Exergy Spa in Turkey are described. For both plants a
Experimental campaign methodology for the consistency check of the experimental data set is presented with a description of
Turbine efficiency the installed instrumentation, the test procedure and methods used to calculate the turbine efficiency as
well as the overall power cycle performance.
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction solution is commonly used for natural gas combined cycles

In recent years the ORC market expanded rapidly in terms of
installed plants, power and number of ORC manufactures that can
provide nowadays a wide range of plant size from small devices
(few kW) up to large plants (tens of MW) [1]. New markets, like the
waste heat recovery from industrial processes or endothermic en-
gines, are growing very fast but the biomass combustion and the
exploitation of geothermal brines have been confirmed as the two
main fields of application of ORC technology. Regarding the latter,
the presence of monetary subsidies is making attractive the
exploitation of geothermal brines with temperatures as low as
100
C. In these cases, it is mandatory to carefully design the whole
system maximizing the plant efficiency in order to payback the
relevant cost of exploration and drilling. Efficiency of low-medium
temperature geothermal plants can be enhanced with different
strategies:
(i) by adopting a two evaporation levels cycle able to reduce the
irreversibilities in the heat introduction process: this
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: marco.astolfi@polimi.it (M. Astolfi).
but it has been rarely adopted for geothermal ORC power
plants where the single evaporation level saturated cycle is
the most used configuration.
(ii) by lowering the condensation temperature with the use of
water as cooling medium or by using an intermediate loop of
water connected to a wet cooling tower: This intervention
allows to increase the power output but, from the other side,
leads to lower condensation pressure, a larger turbine vol-
ume ratio and a larger expander discharge section. It is
crucial to adopt in these cases a multi stage turbine able to
accommodate the large volume flow variation with high
expansion efficiency.
(iii) by increasing the turbine efficiency, namely by increasing the
number of stages in order to reduce their loading.
Exergy Spa has recently installed a number of geothermal plants
in Turkey where the three aforementioned precautions are
considered in the system design. In particular this paper deals with
two plants designed as two level cycles but substantially differing
in plant layout: in the first plant (named GREENECO) two physically
separated plants are combined together in a tandem configuration
to provide a better match with the geothermal source while the

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2018.08.068
0960-1481/© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 L. Zanellato et al. / Renewable Energy 147 (2020) 2896e2904
Nomenclature and acronyms
h efficiency
PH pre-heater; it can be on High Pressure Cycle
(PHHP) or on Low Pressure Cycle (PHLP)
EVA evaporator; it can be on High Pressure Cycle
(EVAHP) or on Low Pressure Cycle (EVALP)
TUR turbine; it can be on High Pressure Cycle (TURHP)
or on Low Pressure Cycle (TURLP)
REC recuperator
COND condenser
G generator
P pump
second plant (named AKCA) is actually a two evaporation levels
cycle but adopts the feature of a single turbine with two intake
sections. In addition, Exergy Spa has introduced in the ORC market
an interesting innovation by developing a radial outflow turbine
that has several unique characteristics qualifying this unconven-
tional configuration as advantageous for many ORC applications
[1e3]. For many years the most common turbine architectures on
the ORC market were represented by centripetal and axial turbines:
the first ones are suitable for relatively small expansion volume
ratios while the second can be easily designed as multistage ma-
chines with the possibility to exploit larger pressure ratios with
high efficiency. Axial turbines in ORC field have been often
designed as overhung machines with bearings only on one side in
order to easily allow inspection and maintenance but entailing vi-
bration and roto-dynamics issues for a number of stages higher
than three. In recent years this limit has been exceed but axial
turbines still need twisted blades for low pressure stages with a
more challenging profile design. Compared to axial and centripetal
turbines, radial outflow turbines can accommodate many stages on
the same disk allowing for a lower stage loading and a high
expansion efficiency without incurring in roto-dynamics issues
[1,3e7]. Moreover, their particular design allows to easily handling
very high volume flow ratio thanks to the increase of stage radius
along the expansion: blade height of first stage increases while last
stage height is limited. Moreover, the peripheral speed is constant
along the blade span, allowing for the use of prismatic blades with
further beneficial effects on expansion efficiency. Leakage is mini-
mized with a proper design of the labyrinth and brush seals at rotor
blade tip and stator base leading to losses comparable to conven-
tional axial turbines.
In spite of the rising interest in this turbine configuration,
nowadays only few experimental data about radial outflow tur-
bines have been presented [8]. This paper provides some experi-
mental results about the performance calculation of the radial
outflow turbine in two different double evaporation levels
geothermal ORC plants that are in operation from several thou-
sands of hours (>10.000 h).
2. Plants description
Both the plants investigated in this paper have a double evap-
oration levels but their plant layout substantially differ. Fig. 1 de-
picts their layouts and the instrumentation installed and used in
the present study for the calculation of cycle performance and
turbine efficiency.
The GREENECO plant exploits a 140
C geothermal brine and
produces around 13 MW of electrical power. It is designed with two
independent saturated cycles working with isopentane at two
2897
different evaporation pressures as reported in Fig. 1 left. The high
pressure cycle is recuperative and uses two preheaters in series
(PH1HP and PH2HP) to heat the working fluid while cooling down
the geothermal brine. On the contrary, the low pressure cycle is non
recuperative and has a single preheater (PHLP). The geothermal
brine firstly flows through the evaporator (EVAHP) and the high
temperature preheater (PH2HP) of the high pressure cycle and then
it enters in the evaporator (EVALP) of the low pressure cycle. After
this component the brine mass flow rate is split in two parallel
streams flowing in the low temperature preheater of the high
pressure cycle (PH1HP) and the preheater of the low pressure cycle
(PHLP). Saturated vapor obtained from the evaporators of both high
and low pressure cycles is expanded in two dedicated radial
outflow turbine (TURHP and TURLP), having 4 and 2 stages respec-
tively. Both turbines are mounted on the same shaft and connected
to a single generator in a double-ended configuration. The sche-
matic representation of the high pressure 4 stages turbine is re-
ported in Fig. 2 left. Both cycles are condensed by a loop of cooling
water connected to wet cooling towers for heat rejection to the
ambient.
The AKCA plant is designed to produce 3.6 MW cooling a low
temperature geothermal brine from 105
C down to 60
C. This
cycle is actually designed as a two evaporation levels cycle working
with R245fa fully exploiting the capability of a 3 stages radial
outflow turbine having a double admission. Fig. 1 right depicts the
plant layout while a schematic representation of the turbine is
reported in Fig. 2 right. This configuration allows for a clear
advantage compared to an axial configuration because it does not
require two separate turbines and all the stages are mounted on the
same disk leading to a reduction of equipment cost and higher
efficiency. The working fluid is firstly pumped up to the maximum
cycle pressure, then after a first preheating (PH1) the mass flow rate
is split in two streams, one is throttled down to the low pressure
and evaporates in the low pressure evaporator (EVALP) while the
other one is further heated in a high temperature preheater (PH2)
and then it evaporates in the high pressure evaporator (EVAHP). A
fraction of the geothermal brine is derived just before the reinjec-
tion and it is heated up by a stream of a CO2 rich geothermal steam
obtained by separation at well head and it is eventually mixed
before the low temperature preheater (PH1) in order to increase
the heat input to the ORC while respecting the limit on minimum
reinjection temperature. The AKCA plant is condensed by a stream
of borehole water. Fig. 3 depicts the aerial view of the two plants: in
both cases preheaters are Shell&Tubes heat exchangers with
organic fluid flowing in the shell side, while evaporators are
designed as kettle reboilers. For AKCA plant a demister is placed on
the top of each evaporator to remove liquid droplets that can be
drag by the vapor flow and damage the turbine blades, while in
GREENECO plant the demister is included in the kettle reboiler and
the tube bundle in the evaporator is not totally submerged possibly
leading to a small vapor superheating. Condensers are Shell&Tubes
with cooling water in the tubes and condensing vapor flowing in
the shell, while the recuperator is arranged as a bundle of finned
tubes enclosed in a vessel. High temperatures heat exchangers are
insulated and heat losses to the environment can be considered
negligible.
3. Experimental campaign and data set definition
3.1. Description of the used instrumentation
As shown by Fig. 1, both plants are provided by an adequate field
instrumentation for temperature and pressure measurements since
several standard precision probes are installed on both brine and
organic fluid streams. Thermodynamic state can be evaluated for
2898 L. Zanellato et al. / Renewable Energy 147 (2020) 2896e2904

Fig. 1. Plant schemes of GREENECO plant (left) and of the AKCA plant (right) with information about the field instrumentation. P and T indicate the point of measurements of
pressure and temperature respectively while W represents a power measure. Where symbol (*) is present an additional PT100 temperature instrument has been installed during the
experimental campaign because a field instrument was not installed.

Fig. 2. Schematic representation of the 4 stages high pressure turbine installed at GREENECO plant (left) and AKCA plant double inlet turbine (right). The two drawings are not
representative of the real dimensions of the two turbines.

Fig. 3. Aerial view of GREENECO (left) and AKCA (right) plants. Component PH2 for AKCA plant is not visible since it is placed below EVAHP.
 L. Zanellato et al. / Renewable Energy 147 (2020) 2896e2904 2899

Table 1 Table 2
Redundant and missing field measurements in GREENECO and AKCA plants: (i) inlet Characteristics of the used instruments.
section, (o) outlet section.
Measured Standard Field Instrumentation
GREENECO quantity
Sensor Type Expanded
Redundant measurements uncertainty

stream quantity point of measure Temperature PT100 0.9
C (at 150
C)

Pressure Absolute Pressure Sensor (0-10 bar) 0.15% f.s.
HP fluid T PH1HP (o) PH2HP (i)
Pressure Absolute Pressure Sensor (0-40 bar) 0.15% f.s.
HP fluid p, T EVAHP (o) TURHP (i)
HP fluid T TURHP (o) REC(i) Measured Higher Precision Instrumentation in AKCA
LP fluid T PHLP (o) EVALP (i) quantity
Sensor Type Expanded
LP fluid p, T EVALP (o) TURLP (i)
uncertainty
LP fluid T TURLP (o) CONDLP (i)
Temperature PT100 0.5
C (at 150
C)
Missing field measurements
Pressure Absolute Pressure Sensor (0-4 bar) 0.05% f.s.
stream quantity point of measure Pressure Absolute Pressure Sensor (0-10 bar) 0.07% f.s.

HP fluid p PH1HP (i), PH2HP (i), CONDHP (i)

HP fluid T CONDHP (i), PHP (o)
LP fluid T CONDLP (i), PLP (o)
Brine p EVAHP (o), PH2HP (o), EVALP (o), PH1HP (i), PHLP (i)
Brine T EVAHP (o)
AKCA
Redundant measurements
stream quantity point of measure
fluid p, T EVAHP (o)
fluid T TUR (o)
fluid P TUR (o)
Missing field measurements
stream quantity point of measure
Brine T EVAHP (o)*, PH2 (o)*, EVALP (o), PH1 (i)*
*
for this measure a PT100 temperature probe is installed
most of the streams and energy balances can be verified for most of
the components. In addition, a high accuracy measure of produced
electrical power is available. Unfortunately, both plants lack in
reliable measurements of brine, working fluid and cooling water
mass flow rate because of poor instruments calibration. Finally,
some measures are redundant while other ones are missing as re-
ported in Table 1.
The lack of field measurements about brine temperatures for
AKCA plant required the installation of three additional high pre-
cision PT100 instruments to better describe the temperature heat
introduction process: high precision probes were installed at EVAHP
outlet, PH2 outlet and PH1 inlet while it was not possible to mea-
sure the temperature at EVALP outlet because of the absence of a
thermowell in the piping. Moreover a set of high precision pressure
instruments has been used to check the reliability of field in-
struments. All the temperature and pressure instruments have
been calibrated by the supplier ABB before installation on five or
nine calibration points and monitoring the output deviation from
ideal values. For each instrument a calibration range is chosen equal
to 0e350
C for temperature instruments and 1e9 barg or -1-24
barg for pressure instruments depending on instrument location.
Table 2 reports the expanded type B uncertainty for both the field
and the additional instrumentation calculated by using a coverage
factor equal to 2 for a confidence level of 95.5% Accuracy of tem-
perature sensors is temperature dependent and a mean value at
150
C is reported.
Exp: uncertainty ¼ Stand: accuracy $ Coverage fact:
All the pressure transducers are locally mounted with a small
derivation in order to dissipate vapor heat and prevent the in-
strument working at excessive temperature: possible liquid heads
due to vapor condensation are avoided positioning the instrument
above the measuring point. Effect of ambient temperature on zero
signal and span is negligible. Field instruments are piezo-resistive
while higher precision instruments employ inductive transducers.
In order to avoid flow disturbance before pressure measurements,
temperature sensors are located downstream of pressure taps into
standard thermowells (AISI 316, thickness of 6.5 mm), which length
TUR (i)
is equal to pipe radius. Heat transfer between thermowell and
COND (i) temperature sensor is guaranteed by direct contact. Pressure and
COND (i) temperature probes are pointwise, and a uniform flow condition is
assumed at the measuring section, except for turbine outlet, due to
turbine casing asymmetry. In this case, a CFD simulation of the flow
in the turbine diffuser and discharge piping revealed that the
pressure and the temperature variation in the corresponding sec-
tion is negligible. In all the piping the fluid velocity is below 10 m/s
and the difference between static and total temperature is almost
negligible at all times.
Time constant of pressure sensor (63.2% of total step response)
is equal to 150 ms while time constant of temperature sensors is
between 10 and 80 s depending of measured flow characteristics
and velocity.
3.2. Experimental data sampling and preliminary check
In both cases, the data set has been obtained operating the plant
in stable condition for a 20 min interval and sampling data every
second for GREENECO plant and every 5 seconds for AKCA plant.
Fig. 4 depicts the trend of some relevant quantities during the
experimental campaign in GREENECO and AKCA plants high-
lighting the very small variation of measured power output (Fig. 4 a
and b) for both plants in the considered time interval. Fig. 4 c shows
the stable trend of brine temperature and condensing temperatures
for both high pressure and low pressure cycles of GREENECO plant
with a maximum variation smaller than the instrument expanded
uncertainty. During AKCA experimental campaign a set of in-
struments having higher precision have been used to check the
measurements provided by field instruments, in order to expand
the statistical samples and to reduce possible systematic errors. The
comparison between the measurements by field and high precision
instruments is reported in Fig. 4 d for the AKCA plant. High pressure
evaporator outlet temperature and pressure show a good agree-
ment between the two dataset. In addition, for AKCA plant the
probes used to measure pressure at turbine discharge and
condenser inlet have been switched twice in order to check the
consistency of measured data. Finally, a check on the energy pro-
duction in the sampling period has been obtained by comparing the
measurement from the field watt-meter and the energy-meter at
grid input point. The first measure is directly available at the plant
control system while the second one is displayed on a dedicated
2900 L. Zanellato et al. / Renewable Energy 147 (2020) 2896e2904
screen. Both measures were collected for approximately 1 h
(including the 20 min sampling interval) and the overall energy is
compared: the relative difference is 0.274% showing a high reli-
ability of the power output measured by the field instrument.
It is important to note that verifying the energy balance for each
component and evaluating their real performance, especially for
the turbine, is a challenging task for at least four reasons:
1. The Equation of State (EoS) implemented in Refprop 9.1 that
links the measured pressure and temperature to the enthalpy
values, used as input for the energy balances and the efficiency
calculation, is a complex function of 12 terms explicit in the
reduced Helmholtz energy [9]. As result is not possible to
directly apply propagation of error rules to evaluate the uncer-
tainty of a thermodynamic quantity starting from the measured
values of pressure and temperature. A possible strategy is to use
Montecarlo simulations for the evaluation of derived quantities
uncertainty. As reported in next point, this method results in
very large uncertainty on the results and it leads to a dramatic
increase of computational time since some calculation requires
an iterative procedure (i.e. calculation of choked mass flow rate).
2. The temperature instruments expanded uncertainty is almost in
the order of one Celsius degree; an uncertainty value that can be
adequate for steam cycles where temperature drop in the tur-
bine is few hundreds of Celsius degree while for ORC turbines it
can involve a large uncertainty on the efficiency calculation. This
is mainly related to the use of a complex fluid and the presence
of real gas effects at turbine inlet that reduces the expansion
temperature drop and makes fluid thermodynamic properties
and the turbine efficiency calculation very sensitive to both
outlet and inlet temperatures. A preliminary Montecarlo simu-
lation has been carried out for the efficiency calculation of the
high temperature turbine of GREENECO plant starting from
thermodynamic measured data. For the temperature and the
pressure measurements at turbine inlet and outlet conditions a
Fig. 4. Trend of data set collected in the experimental campaign. GREENECO is close to nominal point while for AKCA plant power production is lower than the nominal because of a
lower brine mass flow rate and temperature.
set of 105 values are randomly generated with normal distri-
bution having a mean equal to the average value of the dataset
and standard deviation equal to half of the instrument expanded
uncertainty. The resulting values of turbine efficiency are nor-
mally distributed with an average value equal to 87.2% and an
expanded uncertainty (k ¼ 2) equal to ±8.2%. An even larger
uncertainty is obtained for the other turbines characterized by a
lower temperature difference between inlet and outlet condi-
tions like in AKCA plant and for low pressure GREENECO turbine.
3. The poor frequency response of temperature instruments can
lead to signal damping and time delay compared to pressure
instruments. To avoid this problem, stable operating conditions
are selected for the data sampling and time averaged value of
each measured quantity is used for the further calculations.
Moreover, for some redundant measurements the average value
between the two is used: this is the case of the temperatures
between PH1HP/PH2HP and PHLP/EVALP in GREENECO plant
4. The possible inconsistencies between some measured quanti-
ties that cannot be detected when looking only to a specific
component but they can be highlighted when considering the
whole plant and the energy balance of all the components
together.
4. Methodology
In both GREENECO and AKCA power plants, the lack of some
points of measurement and the absence of direct measures of mass
flow rate do not allow closing the energy balance for each
component of the cycle and performing a consistency check of the
experimental dataset. This is a typical issue in cycle performance
evaluation, especially for ORC where, due to the small plant size,
the installed instrumentation is strictly related to power plant
control instead of performance monitoring. In addition, the inevi-
tably presence of measures uncertainty may lead to relevant errors
in the evaluation of a single component performance if the
 L. Zanellato et al. / Renewable Energy 147 (2020) 2896e2904
calculation is not preceded by a data set consistency check through
the verification of energy and mass balances.
First, a check is performed between the experimental data and
the results of the state-of-the-art Equation of State. All the calcula-
tions are carried out assuming pure fluids and using Refprop 9.1 [9]
for the calculation of fluid thermodynamic properties. The ther-
modynamic state of the fluid at evaporators outlet can be checked by
calculating the evaporation temperature from the value of measured
pressure and comparing it with the measured value of temperature.
In GREENECO plant it is found a small superheating at both high
pressure and low pressure evaporators outlet, while for AKCA plant
no superheating is observed at both levels, in accordance with the
use of a demister. Same check is done at condenser hotwell
comparing the measured temperature with the saturation temper-
ature at condenser inlet pressure (in case of the GREENECO high
pressure plant we assumed a pressure drop on recuperator hot side
equal to 5%). Differently from GREENECO plant, in AKCA plant a small
subcooling is found: checked that the liquid level in the condensers
was below the tube bundle we concluded that the “apparent” sub-
cooling may be caused by the presence of non-condensable gas in
the condenser or marked pressure drops in the piping connecting
the turbine and the condenser. However, this fact does not affect the
methodology proposed and the calculus of derived quantities.
After these first calculations an iterative approach is defined for
each plant in order to obtain the verification of the energy balance
of each component by slightly varying the values of some measured
quantities and by integrating all the information from the experi-
mental dataset with additional data related to turbine geometry.
In particular, CFD calculations on turbine geometry can give
useful information about the boundary layer blockage coefficient at
blade throats and reference values for the calculated turbine effi-
ciency and fluid velocities. In this work we refer to CFD calculations
performed by Exergy Spa with the commercial software Ansys CFX
using a list of settings1 that, based on manufacturer experience,
allows to estimate main quantities like mass flow rate and power
output with an error lower than 1% respect to experimental data.
Regarding the proposed methodology, it is important to un-
derline four important aspects: (i) the consistency check is ob-
tained by modification of the original data with variations that are
always smaller than the instrument expanded uncertainty, (ii) the
present approach does not allow to define the uncertainty of the
calculated results since only average data are used, however
sensitivity analysis can be carried out to understand the impact of
different assumptions on the results, (iii) the methodology adopted
depends on the available measures and the plant layout thus it
must be tuned on each specific case, (iv) the approach proposed
1
Settings used in CFD calculations.
 Steady state simulation and axisymmetric geometry.
 Turbulence Model: SST (Shear Stress Transport)
 Fluid model based on a Real Gas Property file created with NIST Refprop data
 GGI (General Grid Interface) between rotor and stator rows is modelled with
Stage Model (Mixing plane)
 Convergence criteria: all RMS residual under 1e-06, power and mass flow rate
variation below 1%.
 Hexahedral mesh (Ansys Turbogrid mesh): Yþ is maintained in the range
30e300 in order to avoid the buffer layer.
 Medium mesh is chosen with number of nodes z number of elements (2500 K)
for each blade row.
 Mesh quality: face angle from 50
to 120
, edge length ratio below 50
 Sensistivity analisys on three different meshes (1500, 2500 K and 3500 K ele-
ments): differences between medium and fine mesh on mass flow rate and
turbine efficiency are below 1%
2901
here is not suitable for performance tests to be performed in the
delivery phase of a ORC plant supply contract but, in authors
opinion, it is a valid strategy for the monitoring of plant compo-
nents performance, to highlight malfunctioning and to schedule
maintenance related to heat exchangers cleaning or non-
condensable gases removal.
4.1. GREENECO plant
In order to calculate the thermodynamic properties of the
working fluid in each point of the plant, missing values of brine
pressure are evaluated assuming a homogeneous repartition of the
overall pressure drop among the heat exchangers, allowing to
calculate brine enthalpy. This assumption does not really affect the
results since geothermal brine is modelled as a subcooled liquid
with enthalpy almost independent of pressure. Same approach is
followed for the HP cycle where the total pressure drop between
pump outlet and evaporator inlet is assumed equally divided be-
tween REC, PH1HP and PH2HP. Organic fluid pump efficiency is set
equal to 0.75 considering manufacturer datasheet average perfor-
mance and we verified that the effect of different assumed values is
negligible on the overall plant energy balance: varying the value of
pump efficiency by ±10% leads to variation lower than 0.15% on the
overall plant balance with a very small effect on final results. The
procedure used to calculate the plant performance is described and
reported in Fig. 5.
1. HP fluid mass flow rate is estimated from the TURHP inlet con-
ditions considering chocked flow in the outlet section of the 1st
stator vanes. Geometrical data of turbine (row radius, number of
blades, gauging ratio, fillet factor) were measured by Exergy Spa
during turbine manufacturing and they are considered as input
to the procedure. A coefficient equal to 0.95 is assumed to take
into account boundary layer blockage at blade throats. The
calculated value of mass flow rate is in good agreement with the
result of an independent 3D CFD calculation made by Exergy on
the same turbine geometry.
2. The same approach used at step 2 is followed for TURLP
component finding the low pressure mass flow rate coming
from the low pressure evaporator EVALP
3. The overall energy balance of EVAHP and PH2HP components is
imposed since the measure of brine temperature between these
two components is not available. From the energy balance, and
neglecting heat losses, a first calculated value of the brine mass
flow rate is obtained. Successively, applying the energy balance
for only EVAHP the brine temperature at evaporator pinch point
is found.
4. Energy balance of EVALP is imposed with the same assumptions
allowing to calculate a second value of brine mass flow rate.
5. Energy balances of PH1HP and PHLP are imposed and a third
value of brine mass flow rate is calculated.
6. Plant electrical power output is computed as the product of
mass flow rates and the corresponding enthalpy drops across
the turbines reduced by the mechanical and electrical generator
losses. Shaft mechanical losses have been measured by Exergy
Spa in test bench and generator efficiency curve is provided by
generator manufacturer as function of power output.
7. As final step, three differences can be calculated: two between
the calculated brine mass flow rates and the third between the
calculated and the measured electrical power output.
In order to obtain the verification of the energy balance of each
component, the three differences are minimized by slightly varying
the thermodynamic values of the experimental dataset. It is found
that changing few brine and isopentane temperatures within a
2902 L. Zanellato et al. / Renewable Energy 147 (2020) 2896e2904
range of ±0.25
C respect the mean dataset value (a value lower
than the instrument standard uncertainty) it is possible to reduce
all the three above mentioned differences down to less than 0.1%.
This allows verifying the energy balance of each component while
taking in account the experimental data set.
The high pressure turbine mass flow rate computed with this
procedure is 145.5 kg/s with a volume ratio through the expansion
equal to 6.54, while for the low pressure turbine these quantities
are 129.2 kg/s and 3.03 respectively. Turbine total-to-static effi-
ciencies are calculated with the following equation as function of
only measured quantities ðTin ; pin ; Tout ; pout Þ. Turbine efficiency
result equal to 85.5% and 88.4% for high and low pressure machine
respectively.
Dhreal hin ðTin ; pin Þ  hout ðTout ; pout Þ
hturb ¼ ¼
Dhideal hin ðTin ; pin Þ  hisout ðsin ðTin ; pin Þ; pout Þ
Considering that at turbine discharge the flow in the diffuser
may be not homogenously distributed a sensitivity analysis is car-
ried out for GREENECO plant with the aim to understand the impact
of the turbine outlet temperature on the verification of the energy
balances and the calculated turbine efficiencies. The procedure is
repeated assuming the turbine discharge temperature equal alter-
natively to the lower and to the higher measured value (respec-
tively at turbine discharge and condenser inlet) while for the other
data a maximum variation equal to the measurement expanded
uncertainty is considered. The three minimized differences are
higher than in the previous case but always below 1.5%. The
maximum efficiency of TURHP and TURLP are respectively equal to
86.4% and 88.65% while the minimum ones are 84.3% and 88.1%.
Fig. 5. Flow chart of the methodology adopted for GREENECO plant.
4.2. AKCA plant
For AKCA plant, it is not possible to calculate the turbine effi-
ciency directly from the measures of temperature and pressure
at inlet and outlet section since this machine has two different
inlets and the temperature between high and low pressure
stages is not measured. Moreover, the two measured values of
turbine outlet temperature differ by around 2
C: a difference
that can dramatically affect the calculated turbine efficiency. As
a consequence, we assumed that both high pressure and low
pressure stages have the same value of polytrophic efficiency as
representative of the whole machine average performance. A
guess value of turbine efficiency it is assumed at the beginning
of the process and it is varied during the procedure in order to
verify the plant overall energy balance. The following procedure
is used and the schematic flowchart is shown in Fig. 6:
1. The high pressure mass flow rate is calculated as previously
explained for GREENECO plant (step 2) knowing the inlet ther-
modynamic conditions and the geometrical data of the first
stator row.
2. Thanks to the use of an additional high precision temperature
probe installed at the outlet section of the high pressure evap-
orator, the imposition of the energy balance of EVAHP compo-
nent allows to calculate the geothermal brine mass flow rate
that is used for all the following calculations.
3. The energy balance of PH2 is checked using the organic fluid
mass flow rate calculated at step 1 and the brine mass flow rate
calculated at step 2. The relative difference on the energy bal-
ance is calculated.
4. The evaluation of the mass flow rate coming from the low
pressure evaporator is less straight forward than for the
GREENECO case and a slightly more complex procedure is
required:
i. First limit is represented by the lack of the thermowell for
the temperature measurement at EVALP outlet that does not
allow to directly calculating the organic fluid mass flow rate
from the component energy balance. A guess value of the
pinch point temperature difference (DTpp ) at EVALP is
assumed. With this information and by assuming the brine
mass flow rate equal to the value calculated at step 2 a first
value for the mass flow rate coming from the low pressure
evaporator is calculated.
ii. Second limit is due to the circular reference that links the
chocked mass flow rate at second stator throat to the ther-
modynamic state at the inlet of the second stator row which
depends itself from the mass flow rate coming from EVALP.
To solve this issue the thermodynamic state at the first stage
outlet is firstly calculated using the guess value of turbine
efficiency. The second stage inlet thermodynamic conditions
are hence calculated assuming a perfect mixing between the
low pressure vapor from EVALP calculated at step 4.i and the
fluid expanded from high pressure turbine first stage
calculated at step 1. The total mass flow rate expanded by
low pressure stages is calculated knowing the second stator
row geometrical data. A second value of mass flow rate
coming from the low pressure evaporator is finally calcu-
lated subtracting from the total mass flow rate the mass flow
rate coming from high pressure turbine.
iii. The difference between the low pressure mass flow rates
calculated at step 4.i and 4.ii is calculated and it is set to zero
by varying the assumption on DTpp .
5. The mass and energy balance of brine mixing process after
EVALP is imposed allowing to calculate the mass flow rate of the
brine coming from the steam condenser and the mass flow rate
of brine entering in the PH1 component.
 L. Zanellato et al. / Renewable Energy 147 (2020) 2896e2904
Fig. 6. Flow chart of the methodology adopted for AKCA plant.
Fig. 7. T-Q diagrams for the heat introduction process for GREENECO and AKCA plants. The red dot in Akca plant represent the temperature of the brine stream coming from the
steam condenser. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)
2903
6. Energy balance of PH1 is checked using the total organic fluid
mass flow rate (sum of high pressure and low pressure mass
flow rates calculated at step 1 and step 4 respectively) and the
brine mass flow rate calculated at step 5. The relative difference
on the energy balance is calculated.
7. Turbine outlet thermodynamic condition is calculated using the
guess value of isentropic efficiency assumed for the high pres-
sure and low pressure stages. Generator electrical power output
is then computed considering mechanical losses measured by
Exergy Spa in test bench and generator efficiency provided by
generator manufacturer.
8. Using the available dataset three different differences are
calculated: two for the energy balance of PH1 and PH2 com-
ponents and the third between the calculated and the measured
electrical power. These differences are minimized by changing
the assumed value for turbine efficiency leaving unchanged the
values of the experimental dataset.
It is found that with an efficiency of around 91.9% all the three
differences are minimized with values below 0.15%. It is interesting
to note that the turbine outlet temperature calculated with this
efficiency value results between the two values measured at tur-
bine outlet and condenser inlet, confirming the consistency of
experimental dataset and of the proposed methodology. A sensi-
tivity analysis is then carried out repeating the procedure twice and
trying to match the calculated and the measured value of turbine
outlet temperature by chancing also the thermodynamic data point
of the dataset within the measurement expanded uncertainty.
Using the measured temperature at turbine outlet and condenser
inlet the resulting turbine efficiencies are equal to 88.8% and 96.1%
respectively.
5. Results and discussion
For both plants the experimental data set consistency is checked
verifying the energy balance of each component. It is found that in
both cases the experimental data set is consistent and it allows
calculating the missing values by means of the energy balance
applied to different components and using information on the
geometrical data for the turbines stators. Fig. 7 depicts the
temperature-heat diagrams for the heat introduction process in
both plants with the repartition of the heat introduced between the
different components. Very low pinch point temperatures differ-
ences are obtained highlighting the choice of the ORC manufacturer
2904 L. Zanellato et al. / Renewable Energy 147 (2020) 2896e2904

Table 3 to calculate the missing measured values and to obtain a values for
Main quantities calculated for GREENECO and AKCA plant. the calculated quantities that allow to respect the energy balance of
GREENECO AKCA each component. The procedure starts from average data of the
Turbine efficiency HP 84.3%e85.5% - 86.4% 88.8%e91.9% -96.1%
experimental campaign and, by applying small modification to the
LP 88.1%e88.4% - 88.65% initial data, reaches a consistent solution. This approach relies on a
heat input from geothermal HP 61.5 28.2 number of assumptions that can affect the final results and requires
brine, MW LP 54.4 the availability of components manufacturer in sharing sensible
Turbine mechanical power, HP 8.38 0.5
data like blade geometry and equipment specification. The uncer-
MW LP 4.57 2.41
Electric power output, MW 12.68 2.83 tainty associated to the derived value is not computed and the
Plant efficiency 10.8% 10.0% calculated values should be considered as a first, but reasonable,
Second law efficiency* 58.1% 68.2% estimation of real quantities. Additional sensitivity analysis on both
evaporator DTpp ,
C HP 1.18 1.35
the assumptions and the reliability of measurements can be carried
LP 1.11 1.60
out in order to understand their impact on the calculated values.
The procedure has been successfully applied to two plants differing
in both the plant configurations and the number and location of
to adopt large heat exchanger surface in order to increase system measurement points allowing to calculate values of isentropic ef-
efficiency. In example, GREENECO plant efficiency results equal to ficiency that are warranted on the basis of a large set of experi-
10.8% that corresponds to a 58.1% second law efficiency calculated mental data, including direct electrical power measurement, and
respect to the trapezoidal Lorenz cycle working between brine information on turbine row geometry.
temperature and condensation temperature, while for AKCA the
plant and the second law efficiencies are 10.0% and 68.2% respec-
tively. Power output of GREENECO plant is very close to the design
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