Performance of a combined power and cooling system under solar, solar storage and storage mode of operations

Abstract

In this study, the performances of a combined power and cooling system are compared at solar, solar storage (SS), and storage mode of operations using therminol–LT (TLT) and solar salt as storage media. In the solar mode, the entire water heated in a collector field is used to drive subsequently an organic Rankine cycle and an absorption cooling system. In the SS mode during high radiation (950 W/m2), thermal energy storage (TES) is used to store a fraction of hot water for later use during the storage mode at nighttime. The system produced 1.1 MW of power and 2.455 MW of cooling during the solar mode at low radiation (640 W/m2). At the SS mode, with TLT as a storage fluid, the power increased to double, however the cooling reduced by 12.22%. During the storage mode, the TLT based system produced 0.553 MW of cooling. During the SS mode with solar salt, the power and cooling increased, however, the nighttime cooling reduced significantly with solar salt. The total energy and the overall system efficiency was more with solar salt compared to those of TLT. The energy output and the system efficiency were the maximum at 950 W/m2 without TES.

Keywords

• Combined power and cooling
• Organic rankine cycle
• Performance
• Solar absorption cooling system

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