Thermodynamic Assessment of a Solar-Assisted Hybrid System Producing Power, Cooling, and Freshwater

This paper presents a novel solar energy based trigeneration plant capable of simultaneously delivering power, refrigeration, and freshwater. The configuration incorporates a steam Rankine cycle (SRC), an ejector refrigeration cycle (ERC), and a reverse osmosis (RO) desalination unit. The system is thermodynamically modeled under steady-state conditions, and mass, energy, and exergy balances are applied to each component. Based on the steady-state analysis, the system yields 49.54 kW of net power, 14.09 kW of refrigeration capacity, and 2.223 m3/h of freshwater. The system’s energy and exergy efficiencies are computed to be 0.463 and 0.128, correspondingly. Exergy analysis reveals that the PTSC is responsible for the highest share of exergy destructions, accounting for nearly 66.3% of total exergy losses. In addition, a parametric analysis is performed to examine the impact of varying solar radiation levels on the plant’s performance. The results indicate that increasing solar input significantly enhances power generation, cooling, and freshwater production.