Exergo-ecological assessment of multi-generation energy systems

This chapter provides three examples illustrating the usefullness of the concepts of exergy, exergy cost and thermo-ecological cost. The first example is related to exergo-ecological evaluation of adsorption chiller system. System consisted of cogeneration, solar collector and adsorption chiller are analyzed using the concept of thermo-ecological cost. The second example is devoted to thermo-ecological assessment of combined cold-heat-and-power plant CCHP plant supported with renewable energy. The aim of this analysis is to apply the exergo-ecological analysis for selected CCHP trigenaration system based on two renewable resources (biogas/solar radiation). The third example concerns the recovery of exergy from pressurized natural gas. The recovery system comprises a two-stage turbine expander integrated with a co-generation module. The example demonstrates the usefulness of exergy analysis, which, in contrast to energy analysis, provides tools to indicate and quantify the origin of the generated electricity. Finally, the studied case provides a numerical example for the calculation of unit exergy cost and of the thermo-ecological cost along the productive structure of the system.