Performance assessment of PTSC-driven organic Rankine cycle systems integrated with bottoming Kalina and absorption chiller cycles: A parametric study

Abstract

It is crucial to evaluate the impact of key parameters of multi-generation systems on their performance characteristics in order to develop efficient systems. The present study conducts parametric analysis of a PTSC-driven trigeneration system with a novel energy distribution based on direct-fed organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and bottom-cycled arrangement of double-effect absorption refrigeration cycle and Kalina cycle system. Three different ORC structures (simple, regenerative, and ORC integrated with IHE) are proposed. Effect of key ORC parameters namely ORC evaporator pinch point temperature and pump inlet temperature is examined on the thermodynamic performance of systems. Decrease of pinch point temperature enhances overall efficiencies and heating power in all three configurations, and increases (decreases) the net electrical power for ORC and RORC (ORC) based systems. This also enhances the cooling power of the RORC based system, though it has no impact on the cooling power of the ORC and ORC-IHE based systems. Reduction of the ORC pump inlet temperature increases overall exergy efficiency in all hybrid systems and overall energy efficiency in the ORC and ORC-IHE based systems, whereas it slightly decreases for the RORC based system. Based on a comparative study, performance of the proposed systems is found to be higher than related solar-driven multi-generation systems in the literature.