Organic Rankine, Kalina and sCO2 cycles: What to track
Watch host duty, fleet growth and the sCO2 race
What this tab covers The attributes worth tracking regularly, with the latest value, the direction of travel and why each matters.Track running hours, conversion efficiency, host health, abatement per dollar, exchanger fouling and carbon rules, plus progress of sCO2 and supplier fleets.
| Category | Attribute | Latest | Trend | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operational | Capacity factor and operating hours | About 6,150 full-load hours expected at Riyadh Cement (calculated)12 | → stable | Below about 4,000 hours the levelised cost roughly doubles. |
| Techno-economic | Thermal efficiency over time | 15-20% conventional, 8-9% low-temperature ORC1 | ↗ improving | Fluid and turbine improvements push low-temperature units down to about 95 C. |
| Counterparty | Host counterparty credit and utilisation rate | Ormat heat-rights model: about 50 MW running below capacity on low compressor run time, with one waste heat agreement expected to end (2025 annual report)620 | ↘ worsening | Even pipeline hosts change duty, so minimum-heat clauses and host diversity matter. |
| Impact | t CO2e avoided per dollar invested | About 1.1 t CO2 per USD 1,000 of capex per year for a 13 MW unit at USD 2,500/kW (calculated)12 | → stable | Uses Riyadh avoided CO2 and DOE capex for 5-20 MW ORC units. |
| Operational | Heat exchanger fouling and cleaning frequency | Thermal-oil loop isolates the ORC; dusty-gas exchangers need cleaning2 | → stable | Fouling of the primary heat exchanger, not the turbine, usually limits output. |
| Policy | Local carbon pricing and penalties | EU ETS December 2026 allowance about EUR 84.50/t (23 October 2026), after trading at EUR 82-87 over the previous month; CBAM certificate price EUR 82.32/t for Q3 2026, up from EUR 75.28 in Q2 (definitive regime since 1 January 2026). India CCTS: intensity targets bind about 490 entities in seven sectors for 2025-26 and 2026-27 against a 2023-24 baseline; no certificate trading had been reported by July 2026, and analysts assume an opening price near USD 10/t CO2e.1216171819 | ↕ volatile | EU prices sit in the low to mid EUR 80s while ETS reform is debated; India's targets are modest (cement average cuts of about 1.89% by 2025-26 and 3.22% by 2026-27), so CCTS adds little value to recovery projects for now. |
| Technology | Supercritical CO2 scale-up | STEP pilot reached about 4 MW grid-synchronised in Phase 1 (October 2024) against a 10 MW target; start-up American Supercritical launched factory-built sCO2 bottoming blocks for gas turbine exhaust in September 2026 with no commercial operating data yet (company claims)721 | ↗ improving | Commercial sCO2 WHR depends on proving durability at scale. |
| Market | Supplier fleet size | Turboden: more than 460 ORC units (2026); Exergy: about 600 MW, mostly geothermal (2026); both company figures313 | ↗ improving | A larger fleet means better reliability data and service cover. |
Sources
- Waste Heat to Power, CHP Technology Fact Sheet Series (DOE/EE-2347) US Department of Energy, 2021
- Turboden commissions 13MW waste heat power plant at Riyadh Cement CemNet (International Cement Review), 2026
- Enhancing energy security and sustainability in cement plants through Turboden ORC technology Turboden (press review), 2026
- Ormat Technologies signs a new power purchase agreement with Great River Energy (dated) Ormat Technologies (press release), 2008
- STEP Demo pilot plant achieves full operational conditions for Phase 1 of testing Southwest Research Institute, 2024
- CBAM definitive regime European Commission, Taxation and Customs Union, 2026
- Exergy launches US operations to support rapid geothermal growth across North America (company figures) ThinkGeoEnergy, 2026
- EUA trading in very narrow range awaiting news from ETS revision; moves driven by gas price CemNet (International Cement Review), 2026
- Price of CBAM certificates European Commission, Taxation and Customs Union, 2026
- Compliance obligations under India's Carbon Credit Trading Scheme enter into force for seven sectors International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP), 2026
- Unlocking Ambition for India's Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (Anirudh TR) Climate Risk Horizons and Energy Transition Ventures, 2026
- Annual Report 2025 including Form 10-K (OREG recovered energy plants, table of power plants and footnote 8) Ormat Technologies (SEC filing), 2026
- American Supercritical launches sCO2 power blocks for gas turbine waste heat Turbomachinery International, 2026