TY - JOUR
T1 - Exergy, economic and environmental analysis of a solar-assisted cold supply machine for district energy systems
AU - Sadi, Meisam
AU - Arabkoohsar, Ahmad
PY - 2020/9
Y1 - 2020/9
N2 - Supplying the energy demand for absorption chillers by the district heating network is a quite common process while challenging during summertime when there is not enough demand from the network. To provide the required heat of absorption chiller in summer and supply heat to district heating in winter, two targets of the system, the parabolic trough collectors are employed. To follow these targets, many components are integrated; including absorption chiller, district heating system and solar thermal field, each of which has its sub-components. In this paper, exergy analysis is used to evaluate the exergy efficiency and the exergy destruction of each component. This helps in finding the losses taking place in the system and decreasing the magnitude of irreversibilities. Moreover, an economic and environmental analysis is performed to evaluate and compare the energy cost and CO2 emission. The absorption chiller of Aarhus University hospital in Denmark is used as the case study. It can be seen that the system can totally solve the summertime supply problem of the chiller and can also support the district heating system. The results show that the highest exergy destruction occurs in the absorber and desorber with the percentages of 40.5% and 35.5%. The payback period of the system is found to be about 7.5 years based on the net present value approach. The system saves over 182,000 tonnes of equivalent CO2 being emitted to the environment, throughout its 20-year lifetime.
AB - Supplying the energy demand for absorption chillers by the district heating network is a quite common process while challenging during summertime when there is not enough demand from the network. To provide the required heat of absorption chiller in summer and supply heat to district heating in winter, two targets of the system, the parabolic trough collectors are employed. To follow these targets, many components are integrated; including absorption chiller, district heating system and solar thermal field, each of which has its sub-components. In this paper, exergy analysis is used to evaluate the exergy efficiency and the exergy destruction of each component. This helps in finding the losses taking place in the system and decreasing the magnitude of irreversibilities. Moreover, an economic and environmental analysis is performed to evaluate and compare the energy cost and CO2 emission. The absorption chiller of Aarhus University hospital in Denmark is used as the case study. It can be seen that the system can totally solve the summertime supply problem of the chiller and can also support the district heating system. The results show that the highest exergy destruction occurs in the absorber and desorber with the percentages of 40.5% and 35.5%. The payback period of the system is found to be about 7.5 years based on the net present value approach. The system saves over 182,000 tonnes of equivalent CO2 being emitted to the environment, throughout its 20-year lifetime.
KW - Absorption chiller
KW - District heating
KW - Economic and environmental analysis
KW - Energy
KW - Exergy
KW - Parabolic trough solar collectors
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85087221564&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.energy.2020.118210
DO - 10.1016/j.energy.2020.118210
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85087221564
SN - 0360-5442
VL - 206
JO - Energy
JF - Energy
M1 - 118210
ER -