Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) system driven with solar-wind energy and thermoelectric based on thermo-economic analysis using multi-objective optimization technique

Abstract

In the present study, we investigated a multiple energy generation system based on the use of solar, wind and ocean thermal energy for the study area with high renewable energy potential. In this study, all existing capacities in coastal areas (wind, sun, ocean temperature difference) are used to design a renewable system. The present system consists of subsystems including organic Rankin cycle (ORC), wind turbine, thermoelectric, heat exchanger and flat panel solar collector. EES thermodynamic software has been used to model the system and obtain thermodynamic results. The system designed for the city of Bushehr, which has good ocean thermal energy, wind energy and solar radiation potential, has been studied. The most important effective and practical parameters in the proposed system are collector area, solar radiation, and wind turbine speed. The results of the investigation of the system in Bushehr City showed that the production power of the system is 4,840,913.8 and 1,138,957.02 kWh compared to the climate changes. Also, the amount of freshwater produced by the system is 103,495.99 and 429,080.51 m3/h compared to the climate changes. Finally, in order to optimize the designed system, the response level multi-objective optimization method has been used to find the best set of objective functions and decision variables. The two objective functions of this optimization included the exergy efficiency of the whole system and the system cost rate. The most optimal value of exergy efficiency was 13.25% and the cost rate was 72.17 $/hour.