Design and Comparative Techno-Economic Analysis of Two Solar Polygeneration Systems Applied for Electricity, Cooling and Fresh Water Production

Abstract

Two solar polygeneration systems were investigated for electricity, cooling and fresh water production. In the first scenario (LFPS), the linear Fresnel (LF) solar field was used as thermal source of the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC), absorption chiller (ACH) and multi-effect desalination (MED) unit. In the second scenario (PVPS), photovoltaic (PV) panels were considered as the electricity source to supply the electricity load that is required for lighting, electrical devices, compression chiller (CCH) and reverse osmosis (RO) units. A techno-economic comparison was made between two scenarios based on the land use factor (F), capacity utilization factor (CUF), payback period, levelized cost of electricity (LCE), levelized cost of cooling energy (LCC) and levelized cost of water (LCW). The calculations were conducted for four different locations in order to determine the effect of solar radiation level on the LCE, LCC and LCW of systems in both scenarios. The results showed that the LCE and LCW of PVPS is lower than that of LFPS and the LCC of LFPS is lower than that of PVPS. Also, the payback period of LFPS and PVPS systems are obtained as 13.97 years and 13.54 years, respectively, if no incentive is considered for the electricity sale.

Integrated Geothermal Energy Systems for Small-Scale Combined Heat and Power Production: Energy and Economic Investigation

“…A lumped thermodynamic model has been developed to select the suitable ORC system and the corresponding operating conditions, and to calculate the energy production on hourly basis over the whole year. The proper system configuration has been defined adopting a multi-variable optimisation and different operating strategies (i.e., thermal-driven, electric-driven and mixed-mode) have been compared [2,75,76]. Finally, the economic viability of the proposed technical solution has been investigated through the estimation of the cost of the single sub-units.…”

Modeling of a Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Integrated with an Adsorption Chiller

“…Therefore, the trigeneration [10,11] system would be an ideal solution for heat generating plants that face a serious hindrance to their operation during the summer months. The systemic generation of cooling would also reduce power consumption for air conditioning, which would have a favourable effect on the entire power system and would relieve the demand for power during the summer months [14][15][16][17]. Advantages of the generation of district cooling include increased power safety as a result of increased generation of electricity during the summers' peak electricity demand and by improved effectiveness of the utilisation of the heat generation systems (generation sources as well as heat networks) will result in more effective use of primary energy resources as well as elimination of CFCs used in compressors, which are harmful to the environment.…”

Techno-Economic Analysis of Biofuel, Solar and Wind Multi-Source Small-Scale CHP Systems

“…), as well as various technologies (photovoltaic and solar heating, heat pump and absorption chiller) represents a complex task [6][7][8]. The main goal is finding the proper size of each technology considering both cost-effectiveness and energy efficiency, as well as the proper operating strategies [9][10][11][12][13][14]. To this purpose, different optimization procedures to define the proper system configuration and operation have been proposed in the last few years based both on single and multi-objective optimization [15][16][17][18][19].…”