Power production from a moderatetemperature geothermal resource.” Geothermal Resources Council Trans

Organic Rankine Cycle power production from low temperature resources has inherently a low thermal efficiency. Low efficiency requires increased power plant equipment size (turbine, condenser, pump and boiler) that can become cost prohibitive. The use of ORC power plant hardware derived from air-conditioning equipment overcomes this cost problem since air-conditioning hardware has a cost structure almost an order of magnitude smaller than that of traditional power generating equipment. Using the HVAC derivative concept a low-cost 200 kW ORC power plant has been developed as a derivative of a standard 350 ton air-conditioning equipment. The corresponding PureCycleTM200 product was introduced in 2004. It uses waste heat exhaust gases and air-cooled condenser equipment. This paper describes the extension of this ORC development work towards power production from moderate-temperature geothermal resources