Applicable fluid heat sources are between 70°C and 150°C. Gaseous heat sources above 150°C can also be used with the deployment of a secondary heat exchange loop. Our low-temperature ORC solutions use hot water as fuel in order to generate up to 125 kWe of clean electricity, at no additional cost to the operator.

The working principle of the organic Rankine cycle is the same as that of the Rankine cycle: the working fluid is pumped to a boiler where it is evaporated, passed through an expansion device (turbine, screw, scroll, or other expander), and then through a condenser heat exchanger where it is finally re-condensed.

Reheating is a method of improving Rankine cycle efficiency which consists of inter-stage heating of the expanding steam. After the first stage of expansion which typically reduces initial steam pressure by one-fourth, the steam is heated up (or close) to the maximum heat source temperature.

An organic Rankine cycle (ORC), is fundamentally the same as a steam Rankine cycle; however, it uses a lower boiling point organic fluid to better match its operation to lower temperature heat sources. ORC systems can achieve better efficiencies than steam turbines for smaller systems (less than a few MW_e).