Quantitative sustainability assessment and sensitivity analysis for a solar-driven combined heating and power system integrated with organic Rankine cycle and ground source heat pump

Abstract

Integrating renewable energy and combined heating and power (CHP) systems saves fossil energy, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and increases system efficiency. This study proposes a solar-driven CHP system integrated with an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and a ground source heat pump (GSHP). A quantitative sustainability assessment method is used to evaluate the sustainability performance of the CHP system. This method aggregates the technical, economic, environmental, and social performance of the solar-driven CHP system through an information entropy approach to obtain a composite sustainability index. The results indicate that the solar-driven CHP system scenario with a heat distribution ratio of 75% has a higher composite sustainability index (0.768). A sensitivity analysis of the sustainability performance of the solar-driven CHP system under the optimal scenario shows that the emissions reduction ratio of SO2, CO2, NOx, and PM2.5 are positively correlated with solar irradiation, and the annual cost-saving ratio is more influenced by electricity prices, the job opportunity is more sensitive to job factors of the concentrated solar power. The above results indicate that the quantitative sustainability assessment method is helpful for the selection of CHP systems.