Assessment of a new multigeneration system based on geothermal plant and a linear Fresnel reflector-based solar unit: An effort to improve performance.

Recently, the development and exploitation of renewables-driven multigeneration systems can be a sensible solution to reduce the limitations of fossil energies and their negative environmental impacts. The combination of two geothermal and solar energies, in addition to reducing the installation costs of solar systems, can support the efficiency improvement of the geothermal-driven energy systems. In addition, the use of suitable downstream cycles in such energy conversion processes can improve thermodynamic and economic performances. The coefficient of performance offered by a generator absorber heat exchanger-based refrigeration cycle can be higher than that by the ejector and absorption refrigeration processes. A comprehensive thermodynamic-conceptual and exergoeconomic evaluations as well as two-objective optimization on a new geothermal-driven multigeneration system, based Sabalan geothermal wells, has been developed in this paper. The proposed system is able to produce power, heating, cooling, and hydrogen fuel. In the developed configuration the geothermal source is considered as the main source of energy production and a linear Fresnel reflector-based solar unit produces a portion of the required thermal power of the system. Further, a single-flash cycle, a water electrolysis unit (based on alkaline electrolyzer cell), and a generator absorber heat exchanger unit are embedded to generate various forms of energy. The overall outcomes indicated that the proposed system can produce 4.1 MW of electric power, 1.67 MW of heating load and 1.46 MW of cooling load. In addition, the hydrogen production rate of the energy process is equal to 5.75 kg/h. In such a context, the considered process can achieve energy and exergy efficiencies of almost 34.2% and 66.3%, respectively. Based on the optimization findings, the energy efficiency can be improved by approximately 9.75% according to the optimal input data. Additionally, the total product unit cost rate can be reduced by almost 4.3% at the same time. Relying on a parametric analysis, variables affecting the performance of the considered system are identified. The conceptual design of the solar unit is also presented regarding the geographical and climatic data of the desired region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]