Modification of an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) for Green Energy Management in Data Centres

Oluwatosin Dorcas Sanya^1,

¹Electrical and Telecommunication Engineering Department, Kampala International University, Kampala, Uganda

Cite this paper:
Oluwatosin Dorcas Sanya. Modification of an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) for Green Energy Management in Data Centres. American Journal of Energy Research. 2017; 5(3):79-84. doi: 10.12691/ajer-5-3-2

Abstract

Silicon Carbide (SiC) was integrated into an Organic Rankine cycle (ORC) design to enhance its ability to operate at high temperature. Low-grade heat dissipated from large data centres was used to run the modified ORC to generate electrical power. This allowed for a temperature increase of low-grade heat to a temperature capable of improving the power output and efficiency of the turbine used in the ORC. This research demonstrated that energy management can be applied in large centres, 65 MW power can be generated from a 260 MW data centre at a temperature of 150°C and mass flow rate of 476.19 kg/sec. Heat pumps were integrated into the ORC system to boost the temperature of heat rejected from the condenser and making it available for the cycle. Temperature values from 135°C - 270°C were used to optimise the best temperature to achieve a maximum power production in the ORC; 157.5°C showed a maximum output power of 65 MW. A 25% electrical power can be produced from low-grade heat dissipated by data centres by using modified ORC provided the inlet and outlet enthalpies are constant for all data centres.

Keywords:
data centres Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) waste-heat low-grade heat energy efficiency energy management Silicon Carbide (SiC)

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