Developments in Solar Powered Micro Gas Turbines and Waste Heat Recovery Organic Rankine Cycles

Abstract

This main objective of this paper is to present recent developments and future challenges in two distributed power generation technologies that have the potential to play an important role in the future low carbon power generation. The first is parabolic solar dish systems powering a micro gas turbine by focusing solar energy to a focal area to heat the air in a Brayton cycle. The use of micro gas turbines can lead efficient, reliable and cost-effective technology. The second technology is small scale organic Rankine cycles (ORCs) that can be used to generate electricity from low grade heat, either generated as waste from industry processes and thermal plants, or from concentrated solar power. Although large scale ORCs have been successfully commercialised, there is still research and development required to achieve wide commercialisation at small scale, particularly regarding expanders.