The development and assessment of solar-driven Tri-generation system energy and optimization of criteria comparison

Abstract

In this research, the thermodynamic investigation of the tri-generation system is performed by the first and second law of Thermodynamics. The trigeneration system under study consists of three subsystems including the solar subsystem, Kalina subsystem and lithium bromide-water absorption chiller subsystem. The proposed system generates power, cooling and hot water using solar energy. The system considered is designed and evaluated based on the climate condition in Zahedan, Iran. The calculation results show that the most exergy destruction rate takes place in the solar cycle. The assessment of system is used dynamic and static forms. In dynamic form, that maximum total cost rate, energy and exergy efficiency are equal to 15.1 dollars per hour,by 33% and 36.47%, respectively. The results base-case demonstrate that energy and exergy efficiencies and total cost rates are equal to 9.63 dollars per hour by 17.37% and 18.82% , respectively in static analysis. Furthermore, optimization criteria comparison such as energy efficiency, exergy efficiency and power are discussed in static form. The results of static evaluation revealed that the power is the best criteria for thermodynamics. Moreover, optimization results based on maximum power criterion show that produced power, energy efficiency, exergy efficiency and total cost rate increase by 28%, 12.32%, of 13.97% and 7.68%, respectively in comparison with the base case.