How an Organic Rankin Cycle Works

Organic Rankin Cycle (or ORC for short) technology is based on the principle used in power plants: water is heated and evaporated into steam. The steam drives a turbine, which is connected to a generator to produce electricity.

The same principle is held for ORC, but organic fluids or refrigerants are used instead of water.

The working principle of the machine is represented in the diagram below. The cycle is started at the pump, which is pumping the refrigerant – the fluid of the internal circuit of the machine – to the evaporator. At the evaporator, the available waste heat is used to evaporate the refrigerant. The saturated gas at the outlet of the evaporator is sent to the expander. The expansion of the gas is delivering the work to drive the generator, resulting in the production of electricity. Supersaturated low pressure gas is leaving the expander to be condensed in the condenser. The fluid leaving the condenser will be pumped up again to restart the cycle. All refrigerants are non-toxic and non-flammable with a very low global warming and zero ozone depletion potential.