Energetic and Exergetic Analysis of a Solar Organic Rankine Cycle with Triple Effect Absorption System

As the population increases, the energy demand increases and this requires to develop new and alternative technologies such as wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal for meeting the demands. There was a significant increase in the study of multi-generation energy systems in the last decades, in order to decrease consumption of non-renewable energy sources and optimize more viable and economical energy production. A multi-generation system is a process used to produce three or more different outputs, such as hydrogen, electricity, cooling, hot water, heating, fresh air and water with the same input energy sources. In this thesis, a new multi-generation energy system is proposed based on solar energy. Solar energy is applied by feeding an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) which is then used to supply hot water to the buildings as well as electric current to the electrolyser with the aim of production hydrogen and also using in the building. A triple effect absorption system is utilized to produce cooling, heating, and dry air. A comprehensive thermodynamic analysis is defined, and the effects of various operating conditions and configurations on the output are analyzed. The results show that the system has an exergetic utilization factor of 0.6 and an energetic utilization factor of 2.61 based on generating electricity of 427kW. Also the energetic and exergetic COP of absorption chiller are determined to be 1.16 and 0.24, respectively. In the proposed system, the energetic and exergetic efficiency of Organic Rankine Cycle are 21.08% and 33.98, respectively. The extracted numbers from the system analysis in comparison with previous studies, validate the system performance under the defined initial parameters. So by analyzing the obtained results, it has become a necessity to decrease the system’s irreversibility and increase the energy and exergy efficiencies to reach a high efficient system. All modeling and thermodynamic analysis have been done by Engineering Equation Solver (EES) software. Keywords: Absorption System, Multi-generation System, Energy, Exergy, Efficiency