Energy Return on Investment (EROI) for Distributed Power Generation from Low-Temperature Heat Sources Using the Organic Rankine Cycle

摘要

Energy Return on (Energy) Investment, EROI, is a measureof the future energy benefit from energy expenditure. EROIcan be used in addition to price signals to determine how anenergy technology should inform energy policy. OrganicRankine Cycle (ORC) technologies are employed in a widevariety of plant sizes, designs and locations. The relationshipbetween the capital cost of an energy generation technologyand its EROI is non-linear, which suggests ORC technologyhas a wide range of possible EROI values depending on itsdesign and size. This paper investigates the EROI of twoORC electricity generation plants and evaluates this againstother technologies.The first part of the paper investigates two ORC powerplants as case studies. This investigation is to produce anestimate of the energy input required to build the plants andthe resulting EROI. The second part of the paper brieflyevaluates the calculated EROI compared to othertechnologies, and how this comparative energy cost mightinform energy policy.