Thermoeconomic analysis of a combined supercritical CO2 reheating under different configurations of Organic Rankine cycle ORC as a bottoming cycle

Supercritical Brayton cycles have been considered as one of the technologies that present high thermal efficiencies in a wide range of energy conversion systems. Also, these systems can even increase their efficiency by incorporating a suitable bottoming cycle. In this article, a combined supercritical Brayton cycle with an Organic Rankine cycle (ORC) was analyzed. The influence of key system parameters such as the Brayton circuit high-pressure (Phigh), the turbine-1 inlet temperature (TIT), the turbine-1 efficiency (n(t)), and the evaporation pressure (P-evap) on the economic indicators such as the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), the Payback Period (PBP), the Specific Investment Cost (SIC), and net work ((W) over dot) was studied. Besides, the effect of these parameters on the exergo-economic indicator r(k) and the relative cost difference r(k) were studied. Finally, a thermo-economic optimization of the proposed configurations was carried out. The study revealed that the turbine-1 inlet temperature (TIT) was the variable with the most significant effect on the economic and energy indicators of the configurations analyzed. The increase in the turbine temperature up to 850 degrees C caused a rise of 63.8% for both configurations. Also, the results revealed that the Brayton/SORC configuration presented the best economic performance compared to the Brayton/RORC system. The thermo-economic optimization revealed that temperatures above 800 degrees C and pressures between 25-30 MPa increase system performance. In addition, the Brayton/SORC configuration has a comparative reduced levelized energy costs and low payback periods, which makes it more attractive.