Evaluation of Inflow Radial Turbo Expander Field Performance for a 25 MW Geothermal Organic Rankine Cycle Train

摘要

The first phase of a geothermal Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) power plant was commissioned in October, 2013. The electrical power production capacity of this plant will be in excess of 100 MW when phases two and three are completed in 2015. This geothermal ORC power plant was optimized with normal butane as the working fluid using an inflow radial turbine. The first phase, with nominal power of 45 MW consisted of two power trains. Each power train has a nominal capacity of 22.5 MW electrical power output. In this paper we present the geothermal resource design conditions, the thermodynamic issues for the choice of working fluid, field performance of the inflow radial turbine and comparison with the expected performance.