Research and Development Works on Organic Rankine Cycle-Related Renewable Energy Systems: A Review

Some abundant renewable low-temperature energy sources, such as low-concentration ratio solar energy and geothermal energy, have not been effectively utilized, and researchers are making efforts to develop low-temperature renewable energy power generation technologies. Organic Rankine cycles (ORCs) are suitable for medium- and low-temperature heat utilizations, and can be widely applied in low-grade thermal energy power generation. Aiming at providing a reference for future research and development of ORC technologies, a comprehensive research review of ORC-related renewable energy systems is conducted in this paper. Relevant issues of three types of ORC-related renewable energy systems (single energy-driven single-product ORC systems, single energy-driven poly-generation systems with ORC, and multi-energy combined systems with ORC) are presented, including typical system configurations, advantages, shortcomings, research progress and future research directions.