Techno-Economic Analysis of Biofuel, Solar and Wind Multi-Source Small-Scale CHP Systems

Angelo Algieri, Pietropaolo Morrone and Sergio Bova
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Angelo Algieri: Department of Mechanical, Energy and Management Engineering, University of Calabria, Via P. Bucci, 87036 Arcavacata di Rende (CS), Italy
Pietropaolo Morrone: Department of Mechanical, Energy and Management Engineering, University of Calabria, Via P. Bucci, 87036 Arcavacata di Rende (CS), Italy
Sergio Bova: Department of Mechanical, Energy and Management Engineering, University of Calabria, Via P. Bucci, 87036 Arcavacata di Rende (CS), Italy

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-21

Abstract: The aim of the paper is the techno-economic analysis of innovative integrated combined heat and power (CHP) systems for the exploitation of different renewable sources in the residential sector. To this purpose, a biofuel-driven organic Rankine cycle (ORC) is combined with a wind turbine, a photovoltaic system and an auxiliary boiler. The subsystems work in parallel to satisfy the electric and heat demand of final users: a block of 40 dwellings in a smart community. A 12.6 kW el ORC is selected according to a thermal-driven strategy, while wind and solar subsystems are introduced to increase the global system efficiency and the electric self-consumption. The ORC can be switched-off or operated at partial load when solar and/or wind sources are significant. A multi-variable optimization has been carried out to find the proper size of the wind turbine and photovoltaic subsystems and to define the suitable operating strategy. To this purpose, several production wind turbines (1.0–60.0 kW el ) and photovoltaic units (0.3–63.0 kW el ) have been considered with the aim of finding the optimal trade-off between the maximum electric self-consumption and the minimum payback period and electric surplus. The multi-objective optimization suggests the integration of 12.6 kW el ORC with 10 kW el wind turbine and 6.3 kW el photovoltaic subsystem. The investigation demonstrates that the proposed multi-source integrated system offers a viable solution for smart-communities and distributed energy production with a significant improvement in the global system efficiency (+7.5%) and self-consumption (+15.0%) compared to the sole ORC apparatus.

Keywords: biodiesel; CHP; multi-source; multi-variable optimization; ORC; photovoltaic; wind turbine (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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