Organic Rankine cycles (ORCs) are an energy conversion technology particularly suitable for low enthalpy heat resources. In this paper, the application of a different kind of feed-forward scheme called set-point feed-forward control to an organic Rankine cycle geothermal power plant is examined. The set-point feed-forward control scheme uses a set-point for a pressure controller in the plant to govern the position of valves located at the geothermal wellheads. It was tested using a dynamic model of an ORC geothermal plant, which shows an improvement in the time taken to reach steady state by a factor of 4–6. Testing the scheme with a simplified optimisation programme and disturbance in ambient temperature showed it reduced the emission of 4 tonnes of geothermal vapour to the atmosphere, which ultimately improves plant sustainability and profitability. © 2015 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.