Feasibility study of a hybrid solar cooling-trigeneration system

The following text is about a techno-economic study of an absorption chiller fueled by the hot water produced from both a cogenerating system and a solar thermal system. In the first part, after a brief introduction on the air-cooling needs, there is a general overview on the solar thermal collectors, with a focus on flat-plate solar collectors and the energy balance in a solar thermal system. This brings to the definition of the solar cooling and its advantages. In the following chapter, a general overview on the combined heat and power (CHP) systems is reported. The comparison with traditional systems and the different layouts of a cogenerating system are presented. Then, the trigeneration is explained, reporting its advantages. In the fourth chapter there is a description of the different chillers that are available in the market, with a deep description of the absorption chillers: the functioning, the components, and the different solutions to increase the efficiency. In the fifth and sixth chapters, the real analysis of this work is carried out. At the beginning there is a short description of the company under analysis and its plant, the Pessione plant of Martini & Rossi. Then, a detailed description of the solar field and the CHP existing systems is carried out. The different components, the circuits, the products, some KPIs, are included in the analysis. After the strong comprehension of the actual available energy infrastructure, the cooling needs of the three bottling departments are analyzed. Coupling the production side, with the utilization side, three different options, each one with different alternatives are presented: option 1 considers the solar field as unique source of hot water; option 2 considers the CHP systems as unique source of hot water; option 3 considers both the solar field and the CHP systems as source of hot water to feed an absorption chiller. To understand the feasibility of the options, an economic analysis is performed, and some economic indicators are evaluated. Finally, the results are obtained. The absorption chiller system, coupled with the CHP or with both the CHP and the solar field is feasible from both the technical and the economic points of view, but, since there is the need to drastically reduce the methane consumption (to feed the CHP), the future of the absorption chiller technology is uncertain.