Solar Tri-Generation: New Concept of Solar Energy System

Abstract

It is general that each of the heat and electricity is individually supplied even if their resources are the same. However, from the viewpoint of the effective use of energy resources, development of co-generation producing both of them is promoted. To enhance more the utilization of energy resources, it is considered to supply three different types of energy from one energy resource. This is a basic concept of tri-generation and we named it first in the world. Tri-generation we proposed supplies heat, electricity and fuel. By this definition, we can easily understand that tri-generation is realized by utilizing solar energy. Therefore, we call it solar tri-generation. In this paper, the methods of system structure and the feature of solar tri-generation are described and we conducted a simplified analysis to make clear the effectiveness of solar tri-generation in the comparison of effective use of solar energy with a solar co-generation consisting of photovoltaic cell modules and photovoltaic/thermal modules. Furthermore, from the viewpoint of CO2 emission reduction, we conducted a simplified analysis to make clear the characteristics of energy consumption in the three systems of a fossil fuel fired co-generation and, a solar co-generation and a tri-generation with fossil fuel fired co-generation.