Thermo-economic-environmental analysis of a sustainable heat integration design for biomass-fueled power plant using integration of CCHP and sweater desalination application

Abstract

The sustainable heat integration method proves to be a highly effective approach in reducing energy consumption and addressing greenhouse gas emissions while optimizing overall system performance. This study introduces a novel integrated system that combines cooling, heating, power generation, and desalination and is specifically designed for a biomass-based gas turbine cycle. This system consists of a biomass combustion unit, a gas turbine cycle, an organic Rankine cycle, an absorption chiller, and a multi-effect desalination unit. This model, which is proposed for the first time and embraces an innovative thermal matching process, is simulated by the Aspen HYSYS software. Subsequently, a comprehensive evaluation employing a thorough multi-criteria analysis is conducted, examining the process from multiple perspectives, including energy, exergy, environment, and economics under different operational scenarios. The results indicate that the overall procedure can produce power output of 20,150 kW, chilled water at a rate of 188 kg/s, hot water at a rate of 27.87 kg/s, steam at a rate of 4.28 kg/s, and fresh water at a rate of 0.07 kg/s. From a thermodynamic perspective, considering the entire system, the current process yielded energy and exergy efficiencies of 54.26 % and 29.14 %, respectively. In addition, the environmental assessment exhibits that the determined carbon dioxide emission for the developed system amounts to 0.6544 kgCO2/kWh. In the context of the entire operational mode, it is observed that the total unit exergy cost amounted to 10.28 $/GJ. This outcome illustrates a significant reduction of 33.46 % compared to the single-generation mode.