Optimal Cooling Load Sharing Strategies for Different Types of Absorption Chillers in Trigeneration Plants

Benedetto Conte, Joan Carles Bruno and Alberto Coronas
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Benedetto Conte: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University Rovira i Virgili, CREVER-Research Group on Applied Thermal Engineering, Avda. Països Catalans 26, Tarragona 43007, Spain
Joan Carles Bruno: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University Rovira i Virgili, CREVER-Research Group on Applied Thermal Engineering, Avda. Països Catalans 26, Tarragona 43007, Spain
Alberto Coronas: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University Rovira i Virgili, CREVER-Research Group on Applied Thermal Engineering, Avda. Països Catalans 26, Tarragona 43007, Spain

Energies, 2016, vol. 9, issue 8, 1-16

Abstract: Trigeneration plants can use different types of chillers in the same plant, typically single effect and double effect absorption chillers, vapour compression chillers and also cooling storage systems. The highly variable cooling demand of the buildings connected to a district heating and cooling (DHC) network has to be distributed among these chillers to achieve lower operating costs and higher energy efficiencies. This problem is difficult to solve due to the different partial load behaviour of each chiller and the different chiller combinations that can cover a certain cooling demand using an appropriate sizing of the cooling storage. The objective of this paper is to optimize the daily plant operation of an existing trigeneration plant based on cogeneration engines and to study the optimal cooling load sharing between different types of absorption chillers using a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model. Real data from a trigeneration plant connected to a DHC close to Barcelona (Spain) is used for the development of this model. The cooling load distribution among the different units is heavily influenced by the price of the electricity sold to the grid which rules the duration of the operation time of the engines. The main parameter to compare load distribution configurations is the primary energy saving indicator. Cooling load distribution among the different chillers changes also with the load of the whole plant because the chiller performance changes with load.

Keywords: trigeneration; absorption chillers; optimal operation; partial load (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: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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