Thermodynamic and Economic Analysis of the Production of Electricity, Heat, and Cold in the Combined Heat and Power Unit With the Absorption Chillers

This paper presents the approach of thermoeconomic analysis of centralized cold generation in trigeneration system integrated with steam-powered absorption chillers (ACs). The analysis was conducted for real back-pressure combined heat and power (CHP) unit BC-50 and single-effect absorption refrigerators using water and lithium bromide as the working fluids. It has been assumed that the heating medium supplied to the chiller generator is technological steam from the existing steam bleeding. The calculations take into account changes of energy demand for heating and cooling for each month of the year. Mathematical simulation models of cogeneration and trigeneration systems have been developed with the commercial program for power plant simulation EBSILON Professional. System effects of heat and electricity cogeneration and cogeneration with additional cold production have been calculated compared to separate production of heat, electricity, and cold (replaced heating plant and power unit). The effect of trigeneration has been assessed quantitatively by the coefficient of the increasing cogeneration effects, which has been calculated as a ratio of chemical energy savings of fuels to the demand for heat by the consumers in the cases of trigeneration and cogeneration. This paper includes also analysis of economic effectiveness of a trigeneration system with ACs for cold agent production. The results of economic calculations show that an acceptable payback period of approximately 13 yr for a CHP and absorption system may be achieved. Discounted payback (DPB) is equal to the half of assumed operating time of the system. Sensitivity analysis shows that the most important impact on profitability is the selling price of cold and the purchase of fuel—hard coal.