Exergetic Performance Investigation of Medium-Low Enthalpy Geothermal Power Generation

The renewable energy sources are becoming attractive solutions for clean and sustainable energy needs. Geothermal energy is increasingly contributing to the power supply worldwide. In evaluating the efficiency of energy conservation systems, the most commonly used measure is the energy efficiency, for indicating the possibilities for thermodynamic improvement, energy analysis is inadequate and exergy analysis is needed. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the thermodynamic efficiency of binary power cycle from medium-low enthalpy geothermal resources, and analyze the exergetic efficiency based on an designed binary cycle power plant. The investigation results indicate that the binary-cycle power generation has significant potential in performance improvement.