Organic Rankine Cycles (ORC) are systems that can effectively recover low-grade heat for electric power generation. For ORC to be a viable technology, it should operate safely and efficiently under variable operating conditions due to exogenous and operating specifications changes.

The Rankine cycle, also called the Rankine vapor cycle, is a thermodynamic cycle that converts heat into mechanical energy. The Rankine cycle is name after William Johnson Macquorn Rankine, a 19th century Scottish engineer and physicist known for his research in the thermodynamic properties of steam.

ORC: How it works Where heat pumps use electrical power to create thermal energy for various purposes, an ORC system uses heat energy to generate electricity. In a typical ORC design, a thermal energy source feeds an evaporator to drive an expander or “reverse compressor”, which in turn generates the electricity.

The Rankine cycle is an idealized thermodynamic cycle describing the process by which certain heat engines, such as steam turbines or reciprocating steam engines, allow mechanical work to be extracted from a fluid as it moves between a heat source and heat sink.