Thermodynamic and thermoeconomic analysis of solar derived ORC with storage system utilizing PCM

Organic Rankine cycle (ORC) is an appropriate technology for converting low quality thermal sources into electricity. In this research, ORC with solar vacuum tube collector drive has been simulated and studied in terms of energy, exergy, and economic exergy. Thereupon, different issues such as input temperature and pressure to the turbine, temperature difference of organic cycle evaporator pinch, and solar flux have been assessed. The results indicate that the energy and exergy efficiency equals to 44.3 and 49.7 respectively and the value of output work and irreversibility also equals to 50.6 and 719.1 kW respectively. Due to the high initial costs and high costs of destruction, solar collector and storage tank are the most important components regarding exergo-economic issues. The analytical results indicate that the increase of evaporator temperature will have positive effects on the cycle performance and the increase of pinch temperature will have negative effects on system performance. From economic point of view, the increase of evaporator and pinch temperature will decrease total costs. Moreover, change in solar energy flux improves the system performance in economic terms and leads to an increase in energy and exergy efficiency.