Abstract
Considering that a trigeneration system tends to result in higher thermal efficiency than electricity, heating and cooling generation in separated ways, the purpose of this study is to perform a thermoeconomic analysis of a trigeneration system in a soluble coffee industry in order to improve its energy and economic performance. The current thermal system has a steam generator that provides heating utility for the soluble coffee production, including a refrigeration plant using ammonia/water absorption, while the electricity is bought from the energy concessionary. The proposal is to include an extraction-condensing steam turbine providing 5100 kW of electricity to the industrial plant, besides keeping the same energy demands in the current plant. Heat, cold and power were evaluated for their costs per unit of exergy in the current plant and compared to the proposal of the trigeneration system. The results show that the proposal to integrate a turbo-generator is technically and economically viable, resulting in reduction in the costs for heating, cooling and electricity of up to 72% in a payback period of only 24 months.
Highlights
When part of the heat produced by a cogeneration system is used for generating cold by absorption refrigeration plants (ARP), the system is defined as trigeneration and has been carried out in several applications (Kavvadias & Maroulis, 2010; Lian, Chua & Chou, 2010; Aneke, Agnew, Underwood, Wu & Masheiti, 2011; Tse, Wilkins, McGlashan, Urban, & Martinez-Botas, 2011; Al-Sulaiman, Dincer & Hamdullahpur, 2013)
The evaluation of opportunities for low-grade heat recovery in the food processing industry reported great options for the use of organic Rankine cycles for electricity generation and ARPs integrated in a cogeneration system (Law, Harvey & Reay, 2013)
Kuckelkorn, Langreck, Schineider and Veelken (2002) presented examples of typical ARPs on different sectors in the food industry and highlighted the economic benefits of trigeneration in situation of low availability and high costs of electric energy, or when political incentives are given to achieve an efficient use of fossil energy by the introduction of cogeneration
Summary
According to Suamir and Tassou (2013), the food industry, both food manufacturing and retailing, has a need for heating and electrical power as well as refrigeration. For this reason, a way of increasing the efficiency of energy utilization is through trigeneration. Bassols, Kuckelkorn, Langreck, Schineider and Veelken (2002) presented examples of typical ARPs on different sectors in the food industry and highlighted the economic benefits of trigeneration in situation of low availability and high costs of electric energy, or when political incentives are given to achieve an efficient use of fossil energy by the introduction of cogeneration A way of increasing the efficiency of energy utilization is through trigeneration. Bassols, Kuckelkorn, Langreck, Schineider and Veelken (2002) presented examples of typical ARPs on different sectors in the food industry and highlighted the economic benefits of trigeneration in situation of low availability and high costs of electric energy, or when political incentives are given to achieve an efficient use of fossil energy by the introduction of cogeneration
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