Exergoeconomic and Exergoenvironmental Analysis of a Solar–Geothermal Integrated Multigeneration System for Power, Cooling, and Hydrogen Production
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Abstract
The exergy, exergoeconomic, and exergoenvironmental analyses of a solar–geothermal integrated multigeneration system with electricity synthesis (e.g., electric, cooling, and hydrogen) are described here. It comprises a solar thermal collector, geothermal heat exchanger, turbine–generator, condenser, absorption chiller, and electrolyzer. The exergy analyzes total exergy destruction of the system, 625 kW, with the condenser contributing more irreversibility (550 kW, 88% of the total), geothermal heat exchanger (300 kW) and turbine–generator (80 kW). On the other hand, the solar collector and absorption chiller show negative exergy destruction values (−300 kW and −70 kW). Electrolyzer ηₑₓ ≈ 24 (highest exergetic efficiency), condenser ηₑₓ ≈ 0.19 (lowest efficiency). From the exergoeconomic analysis, hydrogen is the economy with the highest unit exergy cost (≈166.7 $/GJₑₓ) with a cost rate of 0.02 $/s, and this can be concluded as an economically intensive product. Geothermal heat exchanger has high exergoeconomic component f ≈ 0.97 which means that the performance is more dependent on investment capital than thermodynamic cost. The turbine–generator and geothermal heat exchanger exhibit the highest environmental impact rates (≈0.0012 and 0.0006 pts/s, respectively) from a structural perspective while the hydrogen product has the highest unit environmental impact (≈8.33 pts/GJₑₓ). In conclusion, all identified results show that condenser irreversibility, electrolyzer cost and geothermal heat exchanger impacts are the most important sustainability problems faced. The results offer quantitative suggestions for system optimization considering the thermodynamic efficiency, economic feasibility and environmental performance of the solar–geothermal multigeneration systems as systems to be improved.
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