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In addition to conventional exergy-based methods, advanced exergetic analyses consider the interactions among components of the energy-conversion system and the real potential for improving each system component.The paper demonstrates the results of application of a detailed advanced exergetic analysis to a wastewater source heat pump providing space heating in the built environment. In order to determine thermodynamic parameters of the refrigeration vapour compression cycle in different operating modes, the simulation model has been used. The analysis includes splitting the exergy destruction within each component of a heat pump into unavoidable, avoidable, endogenous and exogenous parts as well as detailed splitting of the avoidable exogenous exergy destruction. Besides, variabilities of heating demands of a building within both the chosen heating season and also from year to year are taken into account. Distribution of the split exergy destructions during different periods of time is also presented for the analysed cases of the heat pump and built environment. It is shown that in the investigated system only about 50% of the total annual destruction in components of the heat pump can be avoided. About 30…40% of this avoidable thermodynamic inefficiency is caused by interactions among components. Based on the applied advanced exergetic analysis it is possible to receive more precise and useful information for better understanding and improving the design and operation of the analysed energy-conversion system.

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Avoidable endogenous/exogenous parts of the exergy destruction in the components of an energy conversion system can be computed by applying advanced exergy analysis. Their calculation is crucial for the correct assessment of the real thermodynamic enhancement achievable by the investigated energy conversion system. This work proposes a new approach to estimate the avoidable exergy destruction rates of system components, being more rigorous compared to the conventional method due to the elimination of the need for the implementation of theoretical assumptions associated with the idealization of processes. An open-source web-based interactive tool was implemented to contrast the results of the conventional advanced exergy analysis to those involving the new approach for avoidable exergy destruction estimation. The comparison was based on the same case study, i.e., a refrigeration system selected from the literature. It was observed that the developed tool can be properly employed for comparing the two approaches within exergy analyses, and the results obtained presented some differences for the compressor and the condenser. Compared to the new approach, the existing methodology of advanced exergy analysis suggests lower values of the avoidable part of exergy destruction, which can be reduced by improving the efficiency of the compressor and the condenser. Moreover, the avoidable parts of exergy destruction, which could be removed within these components by improving the efficiencies of the remaining components, were higher in the case of the application of the existing advanced exergetic analysis as compared with the findings obtained by the proposed approach. These differences were due to the impossibility of the existing advanced exergy analysis to implement complete thermodynamic “idealization” for the condenser and evaporator.

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