Turboden has been established in 1980 for the development of ORC systems for
renewable energy and for industrial heat recovery. Besides a few applications in the
geothermal field,  most Turboden ORC systems have exploited the combustion of
biomass. The volume  of the company business in supplying ORC systems in 2005
exceeded 15 million Euro.  By the end of 2006 more then 50 plants will be in
operation in Europe  for a total installed power of some 50 MW.

The activity of Turboden was started as a spin-off of  research  on ORC concepts and
fluid-dynamic design at Politecnico di Milano,  during more than 10 years. Until now,
Turboden focussed mainly on  biomass combustion applications, as well as heat
recovery of industrial heat, following  the growth of renewable distributed CHP
demand in Europe. As a consequence Turboden  developed a number of standard ORC
modules, which were applied with growing success, mostly in Central  European
countries. In particular Turboden developed proprietary advanced design turbines, for
high efficiency, reliability and  ease of maintenance. The same objectives are
obtained in lower temperature systems, like geothermal applications, with different
working fluids. As most geothermal cases  presently exploit a liquid brine,
particular care has to be given to the working fluid selection and cycle
characteristics, in order to obtain the best overall performance, from a variable
temperature heat source. Turboden,  in collaboration with the fluid manufacturer,
selected, tested and successfully proved in commercial operation, in its own ORC
System  supplied to the Commune of Altheim (Austria),  a new working fluid. This
fluid is particularly promising for  applications in densely populated sites, as it
has the  following characteristics:
-the fluid is not flammable
-the required peripheral speed of the turbine is quite low, yielding low rpm turbines
-the heat receiving curve from the brine is quite favourable, yielding high 
performance
The performance in a specific case is presented and discussed.

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