Thermo-environmental and economic analysis of an integrated municipal waste-to-energy solid oxide fuel cell, gas-, steam-, organic fluid- and absorption refrigeration cycle thermal power plants

Abstract

Energy, exergy, environmental and economic analysis of a proposed municipal waste driven power plant is presented. The proposed waste-to-energy conversion system which utilizes municipal solid waste consists of gasification, solid oxide fuel cell, gas turbine, steam turbine, organic Rankine cycle and absorption refrigeration cycles. This is important as it investigates all aspects of integrated high grade and low grade thermal energy systems in a single platform with detailed considerations of technical, economic and environmental sustainability. Solutions and simulations of models were generated in the Gasify, Engineering Equation Solver and MS Excel software. The results obtained show that the net power, first and second law efficiencies and stack temperature of the plant are 219.94 MW, 62.3%, 55.5% and 54 °C, respectively. The unit cost of energy, break-even point and life cycle cost stands at 0.018 $/kWh, 7.5 years and $227.8 million, respectively, while the exergy destruction rate was largest in the combustion chamber (37%), then heat recovery steam generators (22%), the preheaters (12%) and solid oxide fuel cell (11%). Fuel harmful emission factor, specific CO2 emission and sustainability exponent are 0.0009, 148.22 kgCO2/MWh and 6.57, respectively. Energo-economic sustainability exponent is presented, which considers the effectiveness of the energy conversion processes and its economic impact on the society in respect to cost and socio-economic conditions.