Development and analysis of a new integrated solar-wind-geothermal energy system

A new integrated system, which combines three renewable energy sources and generates five different commodities as useful outputs, is proposed and analyzed energetically and exergetically. The mass, energy, entropy and exergy balance equations for the major components of the integrated system are written and analyzed. The energy and exergy efficiencies for the integrated system and its subsystems are defined and calculated. Parametric studies are conducted by varying dead state properties and operating conditions to investigate their effects on the system performance. Some meteorological and system data from various previous studies are used in the analyses and assessments. The results show that the energy and exergy efficiencies of the integrated system become 36.67% and 25.075% respectively. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.