Parametric Investigation of a Trigeneration System with an Organic Rankine Cycle and Absorption Heat Pump Driven by Parabolic Trough Collectors for the Building Sector

• Main Authors: Evangelos Bellos, Christos Tzivanidis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-04-01
• Series: Energies
• Subjects: Parabolic trough collector; organic Rankine cycle; absorption chiller; trigeneration; polygeneration
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/7/1800

This article presents a simulation study which focuses on the thermodynamic analysis of a solar-driven trigeneration system for heating, cooling, and electricity production. The system uses parabolic trough collectors operating with Therminol VP-1 for feeding an organic Rankine cycle operating with toluene and an absorption heat pump operating with a LiBr–H₂O working pair. The collecting area is selected at 100 m² and the storage tank at 4 m³. The system is studied parametrically in order to examine the impact of various parameters on the system energy efficiency, system exergy efficiency, electricity production, heating production, and cooling production in the simple payback period of the investment. The examined parameters are the following: solar beam irradiation level, solar beam irradiation angle, superheating degree in the turbine inlet, pressure level in the turbine inlet, heat source temperature level, generator temperature level, and the heat input in the generator. For the nominal case of a 15 kW generator input, the electricity production is 6.3 kW, the heating production 11.5 kW, and the cooling production 10.7 kW. The system energy efficiency is 40.7%, while the system exergy efficiency is 12.7%. The financial investigation of the investment proved that it is viable with the simple payback period to be 8.1 years in the nominal case and it can be reduced to 7.8 years with an optimization procedure. Lastly, it has to be said that the examined system is found to be a viable configuration which is an ideal choice for application in the building sector. The analysis was conducted under steady-state conditions with a model developed using Engineering Equation Solver (EES).