Analysis and performance evaluation of a renewable energy based multigeneration system

• A new solar and geothermal energy based clean multigeneration system is proposed.
• Component based irreversibilities are comparatively assessed.
• The effects of various parameters on system performance are investigated.
• The overall energy and exergy efficiencies are found to be 11% and 28%, respectively.

This study proposes a new renewable energy based multigeneration system, which integrates a solar PV/T system and a geothermal energy system to produce electricity and heat for power, heating, cooling, hot water and drying air, and investigates the design, analysis and assessment of this integrated system. The psychometric processes are utilized for obtaining required dry agent from the ambient air, and an air circulation system is used to benefit from the heat transferred from the PV modules to the air, which ultimately increases the PV/T efficiency and hence the overall efficiency. We also assess the performance of the system, through energy and exergy analysis methods, for a selected common case and obtain overall energy and exergy efficiencies of 11% and 28%, respectively. The selected parametric studies investigate the effects of various environmental and operating conditions on the energy and exergy efficiencies of the overall system and subsystems.