World’s First Radial Outflow Turbine Put into Operation by Exergy (Exergy - Press Release)
The plant – including the innovative turbine -, rated 1000 kWe, have been entirely designed and manufactured by Exergy, and fed on this test bed by a heat source which simulates the conditions of a medium-high temperature heat recovery, typical application of an ORC machine.
This radial outflow turbine has been taken for the first time to compete in the ORC technology with the well-known axial and radial-inflow configurations. The radial outflow turbine has been used since late nineteenth century in traditional steam Rankine cycles, but suffered the competition of axial turbines due to technological issues that have been easily overcome in the ORC application. Exergy radial outflow turbine has a multistage, single-disk configuration and its characteristics lead to very high conversion efficiency.
The ambitious theoretical results has been confirmed by the field measures, in terms of excellent performance, low vibration and noise levels.
Moreover, thanks to its simple construction and easy operation and maintenance, this innovative turbine is competitive with the existing technologies on capital expenditure as well as on operating costs.
“The operating results confirm that our industrial development programs are based on an extremely innovative technology”, says Claudio Spadacini, CEO of Exergy ORC. “Furthermore our technology has an excellent potential to compete in the ORC market, in waste heat recovery applications and renewable resources exploitation”.
The machines that are based on the organic Rankine cycle are applied where the heat source is usually available at medium-high temperature in a gaseous or liquid flow (e.g. cooling of combustion flue gas, geothermal brine). The working cycle is a close loop, in which the organic fluid contained in the system, receives high-temperature heat from the source and discharges low-temperature heat to the sink via some heat exchangers, without any direct contact. Thanks to this features, the ORC systems can be applied both in dedicated applications like combustion (e.g. biomass plants), concentrated solar power (CSP), geothermics and downstream various industrial processes recovering waste heat at high temperature (e.g. glass or steel mills, cement factories).
Exergy, part of SECI Energia – Gruppo Industriale Maccaferri, designs and manufactures ORC modules based on its radial outflow turbines, rated from 600 kWe to 4 MWe, for full electric or cogenerative applications, together with complete tailor-made solutions for big plants.
“Our industrial history, having its roots in the late nineteenth century, is now enriched with a new family of products that will give to Exergy the chance to play a primary role in the heat recovery sector”, underlines Gaetano Maccaferri, chairman of Seci Energia and of the Maccaferri Industrial Group, “producing electric power without using fuel but exploiting waste heat that otherwise would be discharged, with a positive environmental impact and no costs”