Abstract
Renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal energy, are being more and more adopted in small and micro-scale distributed generation systems. In this context, different hybrid configurations and layouts that may adopt, lead to different energy and economic performance of energy generation systems. In micro-scale applications, biomass and solar energy sources are more frequently investigated in literature compared to other combinations as biomass and wind energy. The analysis of the performance of a novel small-scale trigeneration system is presented in this paper. The system includes biomass boiler, water steam turbine, absorption chiller, and wind turbine, and it is linked to the electric grid by means of a bidirectional connection, allowing to the store virtually the electrical energy produced in excess, and use when needed. For the proposed system, a zootechnical farm and a residential building are considered as case study, including different scenarios for the reference energy system. The Transient System Simulation (TRNSYS software is used to model, simulate, and investigate the system performance under realistic operation conditions. Energy and economic performance of the system is assessed by means of a daily, weekly, and yearly analysis. The effect of the main design parameters, as steam and wind turbine power on the system performance, is investigated by means of a sensitivity analysis. The investigations show that the Simple Pay Back time of the proposed system is below 6 years, when the biomass is free, capacities of steam and wind turbines lower than 4 kW are selected, and a reference system with a natural gas boiler and electrical grid is considered. The system allows one to achieve satisfactory energy and economic performance under the considered conditions, when a proper design of the system component capacities is adopted.
Highlights
Nowadays, the energy sector scenario is dynamically characterized by increasing energy demands, measures to reduce the environmental impact of energy use, and the penetration of renewable energy sources
All the results presented in this paper are based on simulations performed with a 0.05 h time step for an entire year period (0–8760 h)
It is clearly shown that the steam system allows one to ensure a stable temperature of the water stream at the outlet of steam turbine (ST) (96.7 ◦ C), due to the constant temperature generated by the boiler (230 ◦ C—not reported for sake of clarity of the figure)
Summary
The energy sector scenario is dynamically characterized by increasing energy demands, measures to reduce the environmental impact of energy use, and the penetration of renewable energy sources These are only some of the driving forces ruling the new concepts and paradigms of the energy sector, since, besides them, sustainable development is present [1], as well as new technological challenges [2]. The indiscriminate use of conventional fossil fuels started to be reduced or even abandoned in different energy generation applications in favor of renewable energy sources, which are more and more frequently adopted, since they are reliable alternatives [3] This trend is producing new challenges in the proper design of energy systems due to the intrinsic properties of renewables, such as variability and intermittency [4], which determine that they are more difficult to adopt from the technical point of view, with respect to more programmable and manageable conventional energy sources. Another aspect that must to be taken into account is a relatively low energy density [5], characterizing especially solar and wind energy applications
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