A highly efficient combined multi-effect evaporation-absorption heat pump and vapor-compression refrigeration part 2: Thermoeconomic and flexibility analysis

This paper continues Part 1 of our study and develops a thermoeconomic model of the system with low and high pressure compressors. The thermoeconomic model was used to assess the unit cost of the fresh water and cooling and to evaluate the flexibility of the system for fuel allocation from different electricity and heat energy sources. A parametric analysis was carried out to investigate the effects of the RR (refrigerant flow-rate ratio) from the high pressure compressor to the low pressure compressor of the VCR (vapor compression refrigeration) system, the price of steam, and the price of electricity on the product cost rate and the exergy efficiency of the system. The results showed that the system with two compressors had high flexibility to allocate the different energy sources when the availability of the sources was limited for a given value of fresh water and cooling production.