Thermo-economic analysis and optimization of the steam absorption chiller network plant

Abstract

Absorption chillers are one of the most used equipment in industrial, commercial, and domestic applications. For the places where high cooling is required, they are utilized in a network to perform the cooling demand. The main objective of the current study was to find the optimum operating conditions of a network of steam absorption chillers according to energy and economic viewpoints. Firstly, energy and economic analysis and modelling of the absorption chiller network were carried out to have a deep understanding of the network and investigate the effects of operating conditions. Finally, the particle swarm optimization search algorithm was employed to find an optimum levelized total costs of the plant. The absorption chiller network plant of the Marun Petrochemical Complex in Iran was selected as a case study. To verify the simulation results, the outputs of energy modelling were compared with the measured values. The comparison with experimental results indicated that the developed model could predict the working condition of the absorption chiller network with high accuracy. The economic analysis results revealed that the levelized total costs of the plant is 1730 $/kW and the pay-back period is three years. The optimization findings indicated that working at optimal conditions reduces the levelized total costs of the plant by 8.5%, compared to the design condition.