A SUSTAINABLE APPROACH: DESIGN AND THERMODYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF A RENEWABLE ENERGY INTEGRATEDSYSTEM

In this study, a novel multigeneration energy plant using solar and wind energy sources to produce power, hydrogen, oxygen and fresh water is designed and analyzed. The aim of this design is to produce useful outputs by using renewable energy sources for a sustainable energy structure. In the evaluation and analysis’s part, all streams in the design are numerated and thermodynamic balance equations are assigned to these streams. By means of Engineering Equation Solver (EES) software, those thermodynamic equations are solved. Then, energy and exergy efficiency analyses are performed, and exergy destruction rates are calculated. Besides, to see the effect of some important parameters, parametric analyses are done. Thermodynamic analyses indicate that the system has the capacity to produce 5297 kW of power, 0.07555 kg/s of hydrogen, 0.5957 kg/s of oxygen and 17.33 kg/s of fresh water. The system has 4467 kW of exergy destruction rate overall, which is a guide to improve the system performance. Energy and exergy efficiencies are calculated as 45.64% and 42.74%, respectively. In the parametric analysis part, the effects of varying reference temperature, solar radiation, and wind speed are evaluated. Future studies may contain economic analyses or multicriteria analysis to optimize the system and to run the multigeneration energy plant feasible.