Exergy Analysis of a Combined Power and Cooling Cycle

Abstract

Ammonia-water power cycles are important for efficient utilization of low temperature heat sources such as geothermal, solar, waste heat sources, etc. For some special conditions ammonia-water power cycle is an important and economical option. This paper presents an exergetic analysis of a combined power and cooling cycle that uses ammonia-water mixture as working fluid. Such cycles, use solar or geothermal energy or waste heat energy from a conventional power cycle. Ammonia-water power cycle can be used as independent cycles to provide power output and cooling. For a range (25–55 Bar) of boiler pressure the performance of the combined power and cooling cycle is investigated. The exergy of the boiler is very low compared to its energy. There is a boiling process and a heat transfer process at low temperature, both of which destruct the energy given to the boiler, so that the energy efficiency is low; however the exergy efficiency is higher than the energy efficiency. Increasing the turbine inlet pressure decreases the energy and exergy efficiencies.