Thermodynamic, economic and environmental analyses of a novel solar energy driven small-scale combined cooling, heating and power system

A novel solar-driven compact and sustainable combined cooling, heating and power system is proposed to fulfill the energy demands of small buildings at remote locations and exergy, economic and environmental assessments are carried out. This system consists of evacuated tube collectors coupled with thermal energy storage, organic Rankine cycle, ejector refrigeration cycle and water heater to generate combined power, cooling and heating outputs. Exergy efficiency, cooling cost, heating cost, power cost, total cost per total output and equivalent carbon dioxide emission are selected as objective functions. Parametric studies are performed to observe the effect on objective functions by considering generator temperature, evaporator temperature, condenser temperature, pinch point temperature difference and turbine mass fraction as decision variables. The overall exergy efficiency, total cost rate and equivalent carbon dioxide emission are evaluated as 3.159%, 2023 $/yr and 13.10 tonnes, respectively. Increasing generator temperature or evaporator temperature increases exergy efficiency, CO2 emission and heating cost while decreases the cooling and power costs. Increasing condenser temperature decreases exergy efficiency, cooling and power costs while increases heating cost and CO2 emission. Increasing turbine mass fraction increases exergy efficiency, power cost and equivalent carbon dioxide emission, while decreases cooling cost and cooling-power cost ratio. Overall, the proposed CCHP system seems to be fit for cooling, heating and power production to meet the future generation energy demands.