Thermodynamic and sustainability analysis of a municipal waste-driven combined cooling, heating and power (CCHP) plant

District energy systems, i.e. district heating and cooling systems, will be extremely important in the future energy systems in which a 100% sustainable supply and high synergies of different energy sectors are crucial. Therefore, finding efficient and sustainable solutions for the integration of power, cold and heat sectors is significantly important. In this study, a conventional waste-driven combined heat and power cycle, which is the key component of many energy systems in Europe for baseload coverage of heat and electricity networks, is combined with a large-scale absorption chiller to not only create a strong yet reliable synergy between the three energy sectors of cold, heat and power, but also to improve the plant performance in terms of energy and sustainability indices. The proposed scheme is designed and thermodynamically assessed for the energy market of Denmark as the case study of this work. The results showed that the thermal and electrical efficiencies of the proposed hybrid system are better than the conventional configuration for 12% and 1.3%, respectively. In addition, the exergy efficiency, sustainability index and emission reduction of 28.58%, 1.4 and 445.935 kg-CO2/GJ are obtained for the system operating with a third-generation district heating system.