Exergy, Italian technology leader in the design, engineering and manufacturing of Organic Rankine Cycle systems with the pioneering Radial Outflow Turbine technology, are proud to announce the operational launch of another geothermal plant in Turkey for the client AKÇA Enerji. With the successful completion of this ORC binary installation, the AKÇA plant will be the world's first equipped with 2-pressure-level cycle on a single-disk turbine. This unique technological achievement sees EXERGY at the forefront of innovation consistent with its commitment to improve technical performance and deliver superior service to customers. The Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources confirmed in June that the plant meets the required performance targets. AKÇA Enerji will therefore benefit from increased revenues coming from the government feed-in-tariff improving the payback of the geothermal plant.
The AKÇA plant, situated in the Denizli region, is a low enthalpy geothermal plant (fluid temperature at 105 C°/220 F°) generating a power output of 4 MW. The installation of the innovative Radial Outflow Turbine, Exergy's core development of turbine design, enabled the provider to offer the client a superior plant performance with 2 pressure levels with a single expander, producing up to 20% more power than competitors using a single pressure level system. The performance tests conducted on the plant have given extremely positive results indicating a very high turbine efficiency, over 5% more than the guaranteed figures provided to the client. This new binary plant configuration will increase the feasibility of low-enthalpy 3-8 MW range plants down to 100 °C and open up new possibilities for EXERGY clients to exploit low enthalpy small resources more efficiently and economically than ever before. Exergy's CEO Claudio Spadacini commented on this new achievement: "We are very proud of the new goal we have reached with the AKÇA plant. This project, representing a milestone in our company's portfolio, is the outcome of the technical strength and combined effort of our talented team. Moreover it confirms once more the competitiveness and validity of our Radial Outflow Turbine technology to provide higher efficiency and its flexibility to adapt to diverse conditions. Thanks to our technology, our client AKÇA will benefit from a new source of energy in a more efficient and profitable way."
The extremely competitive cutting edge technology and a strong know how in power station design are the drivers of these successes and the growth Exergy is experiencing in the market. The Italian company has reached in 2015 a total installed and in-construction portfolio of 270 MW within Europe and a value of production currently estimated at 90 million Euro (+ 300% over 2014). Geothermal has been the most popular application of Exergy's ORC systems and counts for 90% of the total MW portfolio followed by heat recovery (9%). With the current installed and in-construction plants the company will contribute to a reduction of CO2 emission by 1.146.000 tons a year at its peak production when compared to natural gas power plants, thus confirming the green credentials of ORC solutions.
