Exergy, energy, economic, and environmental assessment of a SOFC based combined power and air conditioning system

This study introduces a hybrid energy generation system that couples a solid oxide fuel cell with a gas turbine to enable simultaneous power generation and room cooling through a vapor absorption refrigeration system (VARS). To maintain uninterrupted cooling, a water storage reservoir is incorporated as a supplementary heat source for the VARS. Comprehensive thermodynamic, economic, and environmental evaluations were carried out using computational modeling of the proposed setup. The results demonstrate that the integrated system attains an energy efficiency of 50.18% and an exergy efficiency of 48.03%, while producing power output of 551.29 kW under the specified operating conditions. The small-scale VARS provides a cooling capacity of 5.275 kW for air conditioning at an evaporator temperature of 5°C, with a coefficient of performance of 0.752. The overall operating cost rate was calculated as 33.57 $/h, and CO 2 emissions were estimated at 394.70 kg/MWh of generated energy.