Exergetic and economic analyses of a novel modified solar-heat-powered ejection-compression refrigeration cycle comparing with conventional cycle

Abstract

In this paper, a novel modified ejection-compression refrigeration cycle is studied and compared with conventional ejection-compression refrigeration cycle based on exergetic and economic analyses. The novel cycle is expected to improve the low practicability of conventional ejection-compression cycle with better thermal efficiency, smaller solar collector and more excellent economic performance. Energy performance is simply evaluated based on thermal efficiency and global coefficient of performance. The results show the novel cycle is better in both the two indicators, which confirmed that it needs much less solar heat and smaller collector, and has better practicability. With the above data, exergy analysis is performed, showing the total exergy destruction of the novel cycle is 23.97 kW less than a conventional cycle and exergy efficiency of the novel cycle is always higher than the conventional cycle in the studied range. Economic analyses taking into consideration the impact of carbon dioxide emission are finished under base case. The results reveal the novel cycle has a total cost rate 24.4% lower and a solar collector 89.5% smaller than those of a conventional cycle. The economic advantage of the novel cycle will remain, even both electricity price and carbon dioxide penalty cost increase to 3.1 times of the current price. These improvements in energy and economy indicate the novel cycle has an excellent application potential.