The efficiency of current high temperature Organic Rankine Cycles does not exceed 24%. Typical steam Rankine cycles show a thermal efficiency higher than 30%, but with a more complex cycle design (in terms of number of components or size).

These ORC models are: regenerative Organic Rankine cycle (RORC), cascaded Organic Rankine cycle with an economizer (CORCE), cascaded Organic Rankine cycle with two heat sources (CORC2) and cascaded Organic Rankine cycle with three heat sources (CORC3).

It can be applied to heat and power plants (for example a small scale cogeneration plant on a domestic water heater), or to industrial and farming processes such as organic products fermentation, hot exhausts from ovens or furnaces (e.g. lime and cement kilns), flue-gas condensation, exhaust gases from vehicles, ...

The ORC cycles operate between 100 and 30 °C typical for geothermal power plants at pressures mostly limited to 20 bar, but in some cases supercritical pressures are also considered.