LAUSR

This paper describes the design and energy, exergy, exergoeconomic and environmental (4E) performance analysis of a distributed-generation solar-assisted CCHP (combined cooling, heating and power) gas turbine system. The solar energy is used by the integration of solar parabolic trough collectors (SPTC) that are used to preheat compressed air before its introduction into the Brayton cycle combustor. An absorption chiller/heater and a heat storage tank are incorporated for producing chilled/hot water for space cooling or heating and domestic hot water, respectively. The results indicated that the energy and exergy efficiencies are 83.6% and 24.9% in the cooling operation mode, and 66.0% and 25.7%% in the heating mode, respectively. Compared to the system without solar energy, the carbon emission reduction ratio per unit energy generation of the proposed hybrid system is approximately 41.0%. The off-design analysis demonstrated that the evaluation using only energy and exergy efficiencies cannot describe the contribution of solar energy in the hybrid system. Adapting the exergoeconomic method based on energy level, the unit exergy costs of electricity, chilled water in the cooling mode (or hot water in the heating mode) and domestic hot water in the market pricing strategy are 2.1, 7.8 and 8.3 times than the natural gas's cost respectively.