Energy, exergy and environmental analysis of a hybrid combined cooling heating and power system utilizing biomass and solar energy

• Propose a hybrid CCHP system driven by biomass and solar energy.
• Construct thermodynamic models including gasification, ICE, solar heat collector and absorption chiller.
• Analyze the energy and exergy efficiencies of the hybrid CCHP system.
• Present the environmental analysis of the hybrid CCHP system.
• Discuss the complementarity performances between biomass and solar energy.

A hybrid combined cooling heating and power (CCHP) system driven by biomass and solar energy is proposed, and their complementarity to enhance the system’s energy efficiency is analyzed and shown. The CCHP system is primarily composed of a biomass gasification sub-system, solar evacuated collector, internal combustion engine and dual-source powered mixed-effect absorption chiller. The product gas produced by the gasifier drives the internal combustion engine to generate power, and the waste heat after generation is utilized to produce cooling and heating with the collected heat from the solar collectors. Under the design conditions, the thermodynamic performances under variable external conditions and energy ratios are investigated and analyzed. The results indicate that the primary energy ratio and the exergy efficiency are 57.9% and 16.1%, respectively, and the carbon emission reduction ratio is about 95.7%, at the design condition. The complementarity analysis between the biomass and solar energy shows that the biomass subsystem makes a greater contribution to the total system primary energy ratio and exergy efficiency than the contributions from the solar subsystem, and the participation of solar energy is conducive to the system emission reduction.