Thermodynamic performance assessment of a novel environmentally-benign solar energy based integrated system

• Development of a novel solar energy based system for multigenaration applications.
• Evaluation of the exergy efficiency and destruction rate in each system component.
• Investigation of the varying operating conditions on the system performance.
• Evaluation of complete parametric studies and performance analysis of the system.

In this paper, a novel solar energy based multigeneration system for producing electricity, hydrogen, hot water, heating and cooling is presented and analyzed thermodynamically for potential applications. The energy and exergy analyses are conducted for entire system and its sub-systems, which are a parabolic trough collector system, a double-stage organic Rankine cycle, a proton exchange membrane electrolyzer, a PEM fuel cycle and a quadruple effect absorption cooling system. The parametric studies are performed in order to indicate the impacts of some key indicators on the integrated system performance. These analyses are simulated by using the Engineering Equation Solver software. The results show that the increase in ambient temperature increases the exergetic coefficient performance of the Quadruple Effect Absorption Cooling System. In addition, the increase in solar intensity, temperature of absorber pipes inner surface and concentration of ammonia in working fluid mixture has the positive effect on produced electricity from the expanders and turbine, and hydrogen from the PEM electrolyzer. According to exergy analyses, the largest exergy destruction rates are obtained in the parabolic trough collector, PEM fuel cell and turbine. Therefore, any improvements in these components would lead to a better efficiency of the integrated system.