Integrated an innovative energy system assessment by assisting solar energy for day and night time power generation: Exergetic and Exergo-economic investigation

Recently, the growing demand for energy along the environmental concerns, as well as the limitation of fossil fuels, have made it necessary to research in and develop the field of renewable energies. The concept of a multi-generation energy system could be a reliable solution for future needs. In the current study, a novel integrated energy system based on solar energy was considered and analyzed in details by assisting the exergy and exergo-economic methodology. Using the concentrative photovoltaic thermal solar collectors, as the prime energy source, the proposed system comprised of both daytime mode and nighttime mode cycles, in order to continuously generate power. The factors influencing the performance of the system were investigated by a parametric study and the overall system outputs are reported in specified conditions. Related to the mentioned conditions, the output power of the electrical demand was 1000 kW in the daytime mode and the refrigeration capacity was 43.11 MW. In the case of nighttime mode, the output power was 823.1 kW. Considering these data, the overall exergy efficiencies were 21.24% and 35.86%, respectively. Furthermore, an economic analysis was done based on the energy generation of the integrated system. Results indicated that the proposed system was shown, great economic viability with a unit cost of generated electrical energy about 4.617 $/GJ and a unit cost of cooling effect about 299.3 $/GJ in daytime mode. Moreover, the unit cost of generated electrical energy in night time mode is 56.21 $/GJ. Moreover, the system provided the required energy sustainably through the year and by using clean energy sources prevented a total amount of 220469.3 ton of annual carbon emission, which is equal to 20,339 ha of forest absorbing carbon.