Thermoeconomic assessment of a PV/T combined heating and power system for University Sport Centre of Bari

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents a thermoeconomic analysis of a solar combined heating and power (S-CHP) system based on hybrid photovoltaic-thermal (PV/T) collectors for the University Sport Centre (USC) of Bari, Italy. Hourly demand data for space heating, swimming pool heating, hot water and electricity provision as well as the local weather data are used as inputs to a transient model developed in TRNSYS. Economic performance is evaluated by considering the investment costs and the cost savings due to the reduced electricity and natural gas consumptions. The results show that 38.2% of the electricity demand can be satisfied by the PV/T S-CHP system based on an installation area of 4,000 m2. The coverage increases to 81.3% if the excess electricity is fed to the grid. In addition, the system can cover 23.7% of the space heating demand and 53.8% of the demand for the swimming pool and hot water heating. A comparison with an equivalent gas-fired internal combustion engine (ICE) CHP system shows that the PV/T system has a longer payback time, i.e., 11.6 years vs. 3 years, but significantly outperforms the ICE solution in terms of CO2 emission reduction, i.e., 435 tons CO2/year vs. 164 tons CO2/year. These findings suggest that even though the economic competitiveness of the proposed PV/T S-CHP system is not yet favourable when compared to the alternative gas-fired ICE-based system, the S-CHP solution has an excellent decarbonisation potential, and that if this is of importance in the wider sense of energy-system decarbonisation, it is necessary to consider how the higher upfront costs can be addressed.