Design and Analysis of a Solar Energy Driven Tri-Generation Plant for Power, Heating, and Refrigeration

Abstract

A tri-generation plant producing power, heat, and refrigeration has been designed and analyzed. Using solar energy as input. The power side of the plant uses supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) recompression cycle. The refrigeration side includes an aqueous lithium bromide absorption system. Thermal energy has been extracted from many places in the plant for heating purposes. A detailed thermodynamics model has been developed to determine performance of the plant for many different conditions. Thermal efficiency, energy effectiveness, and exergetic efficiency of the system has been calculated for different operating conditions. It turns out that the pressure ratio of the recombination cycle and effectiveness of the energy exchanger for transferring energy from the power side to the refrigeration side play important roles.