Applied Energy 86 (2009) 13951404

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Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Energy and exergy analyses on a novel hybrid solar heating, cooling

and power generation system for remote areas
H. Zhai, Y.J. Dai *, J.Y. Wu, R.Z. Wang
Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, PR China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 18 March 2008
Received in revised form 9 November 2008
Accepted 12 November 2008
Available online 31 December 2008
Keywords:
Helical screw expander
Parabolic trough solar collector
Silica gelwater adsorption chiller

a b s t r a c t
In this study, a small scale hybrid solar heating, chilling and power generation system, including parabolic trough solar collector with cavity receiver, a helical screw expander and silica gelwater adsorption
chiller, etc., was proposed and extensively investigated. The system has the merits of effecting the power
generation cycle at lower temperature level with solar energy more efciently and can provide both thermal energy and power for remote off-grid regions. A case study was carried out to evaluate an annual
energy and exergy efciency of the system under the climate of northwestern region of China. It is found
that both the main energy and exergy loss take place at the parabolic trough collector, amount to 36.2%
and 70.4%, respectively. Also found is that the studied system can have a higher solar energy conversion
efciency than the conventional solar thermal power generation system alone. The energy efciency can
be increased to 58.0% from 10.2%, and the exergy efciency can be increased to 15.2% from 12.5%. Moreover, the economical analysis in terms of cost and payback period (PP) has been carried out. The study
reveals that the proposed system the PP of the proposed system is about 18 years under present energy
price conditions. The sensitivity analysis shows that if the interest rate decreases to 3% or energy price
increase by 50%, PP will be less than 10 years.
2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
With the onset of energy crisis and the pressure from environmental protection, solar thermal power generation attracts more
and more attention during the past decades because it is one kind
of renewable, clean and abundant energy, and can meet the demands of both thermal and electricity energy. In the process, solar
energy can be transformed to electric power directly or indirectly,
through the use of some sort of heat engine [1,2]. But the usually
existing commercial solar thermal plant capacity is more than
500 kW and far away from residential districts. The large scale unit
limits its application in lack-electricity remote districts where electricity consumption is small (less than 50 kW). Also, it prevents the
efcient utilization of the waste heat.
Over several decades, multi-production hybrid solar energy systems have been introduced for many applications with proven
environmental and economical benets. The most popular one is
the hybrid PV/T system which has twofold purposerstly, to cool
the PV module and thus improve its electrical performance and
secondly to collect the thermal energy which would have otherwise been lost as heat to the environment [36]. As reported by
Tripanagnostopoulos et al. [3], the electrical efciency of the basic
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 21 34204358; fax: +86 21 34206814.
E-mail address: yjdai@sjtu.edu.cn (Y.J. Dai).
0306-2619/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2008.11.020

polycrystalline silicon (pc-Si) PV/T model was found to be 3.2%

higher than that of the simple pc-Si PV module. Besides photovoltaic CHP system, Riffat et al. [79] developed a novel hybrid heat
pipe solar collector CHP system to provide electricity and heating
for buildings. The experimental results showed that an electricity
output of 1.5kW and approximately 12 kW h of heat energy will
be supplied daily from this system. This suggested an overall conversion efciency of 15%. On the other hand, Goswami [10] proposed a novel ammoniawater binary mixture thermodynamic
cycle capable of producing both power and refrigeration in 1998.
Further experimental and theoretical studies [11,12] showed that
the exergy efciency of this kind of system was more than 50%.
Gordon and Ng [13] proposed a thermodynamic cascade unit that
takes maximal advantage of high temperature input heat produced
by a solar ber-optical mini-dish system. Though the generated
power is used to drive a mechanical chiller, this system also can
be regarded as a solar hybrid power and cooling system.
Not only hybrid solar heating and power system but also hybrid
solar cooling and power system is faced with a major problem that
only producing heating or cooling is not very consistent with the
order of nature. So in several months, the recovery energy will
not be used efciently. Now many hybrid solar heating and cooling
has been used in green buildings to make the utilization solar collectors more sufcient in a whole year [14,15]. Thus is can be seen
that a tri-generation system including cooling, heating and power

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H. Zhai et al. / Applied Energy 86 (2009) 13951404

Nomenclature
A
E_ X
C
COP
CRF
cp,w
f
h
I
_
m
i
LCC
n
PP
PWF
Q_
s
T
UA
W
x

collector area (m2)

exergy rate (W)
cost (RMB)
coefcient of performance
capital recovery factor
specic heat of water (J/kg K)
dilution factor
enthalpy (J/kg)
solar radiation (W/m2)
ow rate (kg/s) fuel natural gas
interest rate
life cycle cost (RMB)
life cycle period (year)
payback period (year)
present worth factor
energy rate (W)
entropy (J/kg K)
temperature (OC)
unacost (RMB)
power (W)
quality

Greek letter
g
efciency

is a more rational utilization mode. But there is very a little of research on hybrid solar cooling, heating and power system though
combined cooling, heating and power (CCHP) technology has been
developed for more than 100 years. Mittelman et al. [16] has proposed combined heating and power approach that employs CPV/T
technology and the thermal energy is wide enough to satised the
requirements of cooling and heating because the IIIV PV cells
operated well under 240 C.
In many rural locations of western China, grid-connected electricity is unavailable because the harsh topography (mostly desert
and mountain) and low population density result in high cost. Not
surprisingly, therefore, there is little prospect of improvement in
the standard of living of villagers from their present low level without the support of electricity. Fortunately the solar energy resource
has been found to be very rich, which is in the range of 5400
8400 MJ/m2 every year. So solar energy can effectively resolves
the no-electried problem in these remote areas, meanwhile, supply cooling and heating for peasant household. Moreover, this kind
of system is also suitable for other electricity user such as sentry,
communication base station or hotel in nature reserve.
For supplying the cooling, heating and electric demands for
these remote areas, this paper presents a small hybrid solar cooling, heating and power generation system of a 10s of kW by using
helical screw expander and silica gel adsorption chiller. The power
generation technology in our proposed system is by using helical
screw expander which was invented in USA and used in some geothermal power plants since 1970s years [1720]. In China, the
50 kW to 1.5 MW products of such machine are available in market. Compared with the steam turbine, it has three advantages:
no limit of working uid (no need for dry saturated steam), low
requirement of uid quality and steady internal efciency. But it
has a shortcoming of higher outlet temperature and pressure,
which results in serious outlet thermal loss and lower thermal efciency. However, if this kind of engine is used in a cogeneration
system and the extra high temperature latent thermal energy of
exhaust steam can be recovered, the energy utilization efciency
will be improved largely and the advantage of helical screw expan-

Subscript
a
ambient
B
condensing boiler
b
beam solar radiation
C
parabolic solar collector
cool
cooling
Dispose abandoned equipment
E
electrical energy
e
energy
ex
exergy
fuel
natural gas
G
natural gas
HE1
heat exchanger one
HE2
heat exchanger two
heat
heating
hotwater hot water
IC
initial capital
OM
operation and management
PG
power generator
S
solar
st
steam
SE
helical screw expander engine
VC
vapor compressor chiller

der in medium temperature solar thermal power generation application will emerge.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance of
this system and explore its feasibility for using in western regions
of China. This system uses two kinds of energy (primary solar energy and assisted natural gas) and produces three kinds of energy
productions (cooling, heating and power). So the exergy analysis
which is based on the second law which allows not only a quantitative but also a qualitative consideration in an energy conversion
process is introduced. In the following sections, energy and exergy
analysis based mainly on the rst law and second of thermodynamics along with a case study of a solar hybrid cooling, heating
and power system has been presented. On the other hand, an
exhaustive cost analysis is processed to discuss the feasibility of
this system in practice.
2. System description and materials
The studied solar heating, cooling and power generation system
is shown in Fig. 1. It consists of three main subsystems, namely,
steam generation subsystem, power generation subsystem and
waste heat utilization subsystem.
The rst subsystem includes a series of parabolic trough solar
collectors and an assisted gas-red condensing boiler. Here, the
parabolic trough solar collector with cavity absorber is adopted
considering its cheap cost, reliability and good performance [21].
Our previous results shown in Ref. [22] indicated that the triangle
shape cavity absorber which shown in Fig. 2 had the best optical
performance and can reduce the convective heat loss effectively.
If the beam solar radiation is large enough to drive the whole system, no assisted gas is needed. Conversely, a gas-red condensing
boiler begins working as an assisted unit to ensure the steady energy input to the power generation subsystem.
The second subsystem is the power generation unit including a
helical screw expander engine and a generator. With the parabolic
trough collector to collect and supply the heat energy, dry saturated, superheated, even wet-saturated steam can be employed

H. Zhai et al. / Applied Energy 86 (2009) 13951404

1397

Fig. 1. Sketch diagram of the solar heating, cooling and power generation system.

as the working uid in the power cycle. The high-pressure working

medium pushes against the vanes of a screw-type expander, converting some of its heat energy into mechanical power, turning
the shaft of a generator and producing a net power output.
The third subsystem mainly consists of two heat exchangers, a
hot water tank, eight 10 kW silica gelwater adsorption chillers (in
summer) and radiation heating system (in winter). The relatively
high temperature exhaust steam from the helical screw expander
is separated in steam separator, and dry steam ows into the rst
heat exchanger. Considering that the waste heat at the temperature of 7090 C abounds in the exhaust steam of helical screw expander, an adsorption cooling system designed and built by SJTU
[23,24] is chosen to offer cooling in summer. The photograph of a
commercial 10 kW adsorption chiller is shown in Fig. 3. In this chiller, the environment friendly silica gel/water is used as the working pair. The working principle is that the silica gel adsorbs
water vapor, so the water continuously evaporates to produce
cooling, and the heat produced due to the adsorption of silica gel

is removed by cooling water. When the adsorption nishes, the silica gel is heated by hot water and desorbs water vapor to the condenser. The two adsorption/desorption chambers of each chiller
work alternatively in order to produce the cooling effect continuously. In winter, the rst heat exchanger produces heat for radiation heating system. If the uid leaving the rst heat exchanger
is still in two-phase state, the steam enters the second heat exchanger to release the heat and produce hot water for domestic
use (see Fig. 4).
Some technical parameters used in the analysis are given in Table 1. The unique merits of the proposed solar cooling, heating and
power generation system are further summarized below.
 Since the helical screw expander can use low temperature wetsaturated steam, the requirements on the tracking accuracy, the
absorber and temperature level of the trough solar collector are
low, this provides a chance of using low cost parabolic trough
solar collector with cavity absorber.

Fig. 2. Photograph of triangle cavity absorber.

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H. Zhai et al. / Applied Energy 86 (2009) 13951404

to the rst heat exchanger and is condensed to point 4. After heat

exchanging, the latent energy of dry steam is used to produce hot
water which can drive silica gelwater adsorption chiller in summer or supply heating in winter. Subsequently, the wet steam
ows into the second heat exchanger and produce domestic hot
water. The nally condensed water at state 5 ows into feed water
tank and is sent to solar collector by a pump. In order to perform
the energy and exergy analyses, following assumptions are
involved:

Fig. 3. Photograph of silica gelwater adsorption chiller.

 The expansion process in the helical screw expander is nonisentropic and the loss in the heat engine is considered. The relative
internal efciency and generator efciency are assumed to be
constant.
 Neglect the heat loss of the heat exchangers and the effectiveness of two heat exchangers is constant and has the same value.
 It is assumed that the cooling capacity and efciency of adsorption chiller are just affected by the temperature of driving hot
water. The effects of environment temperature on adsorption
chiller are completely neglected.
 Because the pump work in this system is very small, it is
neglected and the states of point 3, 5 and 6 are the same.
 Neglect the pipeline heat loss in the system.

3.1. Energy analysis

Based on the rst law of thermodynamics, the energy analysis is
processed in this section.
(1) solar collector and gas assisted subsystem
Incident beam solar radiation on parabolic trough solar collector is

Q_ S AIb

The useful solar energy transferred to uid media is

Q_ C AIb gC

where the thermal efciency of parabolic trough solar collector

with cavity receiver is
Fig. 4. Thermodynamic cycle in Ts diagram.

 Solar energy can be more efciently utilized by recovering the

latent energy in the exhaust steam to supply cooling and
heating.
 Use of the novel silica gelwater adsorption chiller can drive
cooling cycle with hot water at temperature level 6090 C.
 It is a good stand alone energy system, and is feasible for remote
and off-grid areas where solar energy resource is abundant.

3. Analysis
A simple hybrid solar energy system has been schematically
shown in Fig. 1. Some typical state points in the following illustration are also shown. The Ts diagram of the arrangement for the
case that the reheat pressure is greater than that of the regenerative one is schematically shown in Fig. 2. Saturated water from
the feed water tank is heated from state 6 to state 1 in solar collector and gas boiler and then is supplied to the helical screw expander engine. In the helical screw expander, wet steam does work by
expansion and expands to state 2. The separated dry steam is sent

gC 0:70  0:41

T 1 T 6 =2  T a
Ib

If the solar energy is not enough to drive total system, needed

assisted natural gas is

_ st  AIb gC =gB ; 0
Q_ G maxh1  h6 m

(2) Power generation subsystem

The mechanical energy received from steam of the screw expander is

_ st gSE h1  h02 1  x2s h002 x2s 

Q_ SE m

The power output (neglecting the pump work) from by the

screw expander is

_ E g Q_ SE
W
PG

(3) Latent heat recovery

In summer, the latent heat of the exhaust steam from the heat
engine can be recovered to drive the aforementioned adsorption
chiller. The performance of silica gel adsorption chiller with different

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H. Zhai et al. / Applied Energy 86 (2009) 13951404

Table 1
Technical parameters of the facility and reference energy parameters.
Parameters

Nomenclature

Units

Value

Atmosphere parameters
Average temperature in summer/winter
Beam solar radiation

T a;summer =T a;winter
Ib

C
W/m2

30/10
600

A
WE

m2
kW

600
50
0.7
1.5
250
1.0
180/90
0.98
80
20/15
55/45
50

Designed hybrid solar system

Parabolic trough solar collector area
Electrical of helical screw expander engine
Internal efciency of helical screw expander engine
steam mass ow
Heating capacity of assistant boiler
Efciency of assistant boiler
Inlet/outlet steam temperature of helical screw expander
Efciency of electrical generator
Refrigerating capacity of eight 10 kW adsorption chiller
Chilled inlet/outlet water temperature of adsorption chiller
Inlet/outlet water temperature of oor heating
Domestic hot water temperature

gSE
_ st
m
QG

t/h
kW

gG
T SE;i =T SE;o

gPG

Conventional solar power generation system

Inlet/outlet steam temperature of turbine
Efciency of Rankine heat engine

Qcool
T cool;i =T cool;o
T heat;i =T heat;o
Thotwater

kW
C
C
C

T R;i =gR;o

driving temperature is tested under xed conditions. The cycle

time includes the 900s for heating/cooling, 120s for mass recovery,
20s for heat recovery and 40s for valves switching. The cooling
temperature and the chilled water inlet temperature are 30.7 C
and 20.6 C, respectively. Based on the test results shown in
Fig. 5, the cooling capacity and the COP of the adsorption chiller
are relevant to the hot water temperature, and can be curve tted
as

Q_ cool 5:45358 0:17373T 7

COP 0:21821 0:00251T 7

In winter, the latent heat energy is used for radiation heating.

The energy balance equations in the rst heat exchanger is

_ heat cp;w
Q_ Heat gHE T 2  T 8 m

_ hotwater cp;w
Q_ hotwater gHE T 4  T 10 m
8 _ _
< W_E Q_cool ;
Q S Q G

summer

_ cool cp;w
Q_ cool =COP T 7  T 8 m

3.2. Exergy analysis

10

After the steam temperature T2 and the ow rate of hot water in the
_ cool are known, the other four unknown variables T7, T8,
chiller side m
Qcool and COP can be solved from Eq. (7)(10).

12

Thus, the total energy efciency of the studied system is

ge

11

If the heat is rich enough, the extra energy will be condensed in

the second heat exchanger and can be used to heat water for
domestic use

The energy balance in the heat exchanger which involves the

exhaust steam in the condensation side and the hot water supplied
to the adsorption chiller in the other side can be listed below

T 7  T 8 gHE T 2  T 8

35/245
0.29

gRankine

: W_ E Q_ heat Q_ hotwater
Q_ S Q_ G

13
;

winter

Based on the second law of thermodynamics, the exergy analysis is processed in this section.
(1) DSG collector and gas assisted subsystem
The exergy released by the solar irradiation is [25]



_ S 1  4 T a 1  0:28 ln f Q_ S ;
Ex
3 TS

f 1:3  105

14

where f is the dilution factor. If assisted energy is needed, the exergy of consumed natural gas is

_ G 0:95Q_ G
Ex

15

Useful exergy delivered by solar collector is

_ C h1  h6 m
_ st  T a 273:15s1  s6 m
_ st
Ex

16

(2) Power generation subsystem

The exergy received by steam in the screw expander is

_ SE h1  h2 m
_ st  T a 273:15s1  s2 m
_ st
Ex

17

Exergy output from the power generation unit is the electricity

power WE.
Fig. 5. Refrigeration power and COP vs. hot water temperatures.

(3) Latent heat recovery

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H. Zhai et al. / Applied Energy 86 (2009) 13951404

demolition and disposal of the system while the equipment can

have some salvage value. So the life cycle cost is [27]

For heat exchanger 1, the exergy can be calculated by

steam side:

_ HE1;1 h2  h4 m
_ s  T a 273:15h2  h4 m
_s
Ex

18

LCC C IC

_ HE1;2 h8  h7 m
_ h  T a 273:15h8  h7 m
_h
Ex

19

Cooling exergy in summer is [26]

T a 273:15
1
T cool 273:15


20



T a 273:15
Q_ heat 1 
T heat 273:15

21

where Tcool and Theat is the average temperature of cooling and heating, respectively. For heat exchanger 2, exergy in the steam side is

_ HE2 h4  h5 m
_ st  T a 273:15h4  h5 m
_ st
Ex

 C Dispose

where the present worth factor is PWFi; n 1 in

The unacost (UA), which is the annual worth for the life cycle
cost is determined by using the following [27]:

UA CRFi; n  LCC

26

22

where the capital recovery factor is CRFi; n

Considering the price of energy production including cooling,
heating, hot water and power, the total income of the system is
known. Considering the time value of the capital, the dynamic payback period of investment is [28]

ln
PP

In the water side

_ hotwater h10  h9 m
_ hotwater  T a 273:15h10  h9
Ex

25

i1in
1in 1

Heating exergy in winter is [26]

_ heat
Ex

PWFi; n  C fuel C OM  PWFi; n

water side:

_ cool Q_ cool
Ex

n
X

23



1  C power C

iC IC
cool C heat C hotwater C fuel C OM

1 
27

ln 1 i

The capital costs of various plant items of the present system

are listed in Table 2.

The total exergy efciency of the studied system is

gex

8 _ _
< W_ E Ex_ cool ;
ExS ExG

summer

_
_
: W_ E Ex
heat Exhotwater
_ Ex
_
Ex
S
G

24
;

4. Results and discussion

winter
4.1. Energy and exergy analysis

3.3. Cost analysis

In order to investigate the feasibility of this kind of system in
western region of China, the cost analysis is taken into account.
The evaluation tool is based on the life cycle concept, which is a
cradle-to-grave approach to analyze an energy system in its entire
life cycle. The tool chosen is life cycle cost analysis (LCCA), which
provides effective evaluation to pinpoint cost effective alternatives.
In LCCA, costs are grouped into three categories: costs involved in
the construction phase are considered as capital expense for equipment and installation, costs incurred during the operational phase
are operation, maintenance and fuel costs, and costs are incurred in

The performance of the studied solar system is predicted by

using the theoretical model developed in above sections and the
technical parameters in Table 1, the main parameters at different
state points are listed in Table 3.
Tables 4 and 5 show the analysis results in view of points of energy and exergy, where the values in brackets are those of energy
and exergy in winter. It is found from Table 4 that the main energy
loss occurs at the solar collector (133.2 kW in summer and 138 kW
in winter). But for a normal solar thermal power system based on
Rankine cycle, it happens in the heat engine sector because large
amount of heat energy is released in the condenser and has not
recovery measures. The other large loss occurs in adsorption chiller

Table 2
Parameters of the state points in summer (winter).
State point

Temperature (C)

Dryness ()

Enthalpy (kJ/kg)

Entropy (kJ/kg K)

1
2
3, 5, 6
4
7
8
9
10

180 (180)
90 (90)
90 (90)
90 (90)
88.8 (45)
82.1 (83.3)
(10)
(78)

0.10 (0.10)
0.23 (0.23)
0 (0)
0.04 (0.06)
0 (0)
0 (0)
(0)
(0)

964.7 (964.7)
907.0 (907.0)
376.9 (376.9)
472.4 (523.0)
372.0 (188.4)
343.7 (348.6)
(42)
(326.5)

2.58 (2.58)
2.65 (2.65)
1.19 (1.19)
1.26 (1.59)
1.18 (0.64)
1.10 (1.11)
(0.15)
(1.05)

Table 3
Energy analyses results.
Subsystem

Energy received (kW)

Energy delivered (kW)

Energy loss (kW)

First law efciency (%)

Collector
Assisted boiler
Screw expander

360.0 (360.0)
18.1 (22.9)
24.0 (24.0)

226.8 (222.0)
18.1 (22.9)
23.5 (23.5)

133.2 (138.0)
0 (0)
0.5 (0.5)

63.0 (61.7)
100 (100)
98 (98)

Absorption chiller
(Floor heating)
Hot water
Overall system

180.7 (160)
(60.9)
378.1 (382.9)

79.8 (160)
(60.9)
103.3 (244.4)

100.9 (0)
(0)
274.8 (138.5)

44 (100)
(100)
27.3 (63.8)

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H. Zhai et al. / Applied Energy 86 (2009) 13951404

Table 4
Exergy analyses results.
Subsystem

Exergy received (kW)

Exergy delivered (kW)

Exergy loss (kW)

Second law efciency (%)

Collector
Assisted boiler
Screw expander

255.5 (262.4)
17.2 (21.7)
32.6 (32.1)

72.5 (88.3)
5.8 (9.1)
23.5 (23.5)

183.0 (174.1)
12.1 (14.2)
9.1 (8.6)

28.4 (33.7)
33.7 (41.9)
72.1 (73.5)

Absorption chiller
(Floor heating)
Hot water
Overall system

27.2 (35.2)
(13.4)
272.7 (284.1)

3.4 (19.8)
(4.7)
26.9 (48.0)

23.8 (15.4)
(8.7)
245.8 (236.1)

12.5 (56.3)
(35.1)
9.9 (16.9)

Table 5
Capital cost of the plant item of the system.
Capital item

Value (PMB )

Parabolic trough solar collector

Gas-red condensing boiler
Helical screw expander and generator
Tow heat exchangers
Silica gelwater adsorption chiller
Water-tank
Pump
Cooling tower
Storage battery and invert
Miscellaneous expenses

900,000
150,000
300,000
20,000
480,000
72,000
5000
4500
55,000
10,000

(100.9 kW), because the silica gelwater absorption chiller has a

low COP which in turn results in much energy loss in cooling sector. The total energy efciency of the system in winter is 63.8%,
higher than that in summer (27.3%). The reason is that the radiation heating can use the thermal energy more efciently, by about
56% higher than that of the adsorption chiller. The exergy loss
(183 kW in summer and 174.1 kW in winter) is signicant in solar
collector. The exergy loss (23.8 kW) which takes place in adsorption chiller, is at the second place.
4.2. Case analysis in northwestern region of China
Gansu province lies in northwestern China, where the yearly total energy from solar radiation ranges about 66808400 MJ/m2/y
and 32003300 h/a sunshine duration, which is one of regions with
the most abundant in solar energy resources in China. Moreover,
this region has two climate characteristics, signicant seasonal
variability (34 C of annual temperature range) and great difference in temperature during day and night in summer (16 C of

Fig. 6. Meteorologic data in Dunhuang.

diurnal temperature range). The large diurnal temperature range

causes daytime cooling demands in summer, which is matches
the daytime solar radiation nicely. Compared with the other regions abundant in solar energy resources in northwestern China,
there is lesser gale weather in Northern Gansu. This ensures the
safety of parabolic trough collectors and feasibility of the system
based on this kind of solar collector.
The monthly solar radiation and daytime average temperature
of Dunhuang (a city in northern Gansu), which is listed in Fig. 6,
is used for an annual energy and exergy analysis. The technical
parameters of the equipments of the system are the same as those
in Table 1. From June to August, the screw expander provides part
of electricity and adsorption chiller provides the cooling (80 kW).
In November, December, January and February, the screw expander provides part of electricity and the extra heat energy is used
to provide heating (160 kW) and domestic hot water if there is still
some extra latent heat energy. In the transition season, the system
just provides electricity and domestic hot water. The performance
of the hybrid solar system located in Dunhuang has been shown in
Figs. 7 and 8. The monthly power generation ranges between 21
and 34.4 GJ for a whole year, and the plant can have peak power
output in September, because the solar radiation is the strongest
in a year. Also shown in Figs. 7 and 8 is that the variations in solar
irradiance and power production behave similarly. The better the
solar radiation, the higher the capacity of power production will
be. In the transition season, it can be found that the production
of hot water is direct proportional to the monthly solar radiation
energy. This suggests that the more the solar radiation energy is,
the more the latent heat energy is carried by the exhaust steam.
Compared with Figs. 7 and 8, it is found that in this tri-generation
system, the exergy associated with cooling at evaporator is very
small as compared to the exergy associated with power output
and process heat.
Fig. 9 illustrates the energy and exergy loss in different components when the system runs in a whole year. It can be seen from

Fig. 7. Monthly energy generation in case study.

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H. Zhai et al. / Applied Energy 86 (2009) 13951404

Fig. 8. Monthly exergy generation in case study.

the results, the largest energy loss occurs in the solar collector because the thermal efciency is low and its maximum value is only
nearly 70% and the second great energy quantity lost is in the
adsorption chiller because of its low COP. The annual energy efciency reaches 58.0%, much higher than that of other single solar
thermal power plants. In Fig. 7b, 70.4% exergy loss is in the steam
generating sub system, due to the transform of high quality energy
to low quality thermal energy. On the contrary, the exergy in the
power, cooling and heating sub system is small because the production exergy are all obtained from medium or low quality thermal energy. Especially in the cooling and heating sub system,
though there is the maximum exergy loss coefcient, the exergy
loss is very small due to the exergy associated with cooling and
heating is small compared with power, gas and solar energy. Compared with those of solar thermal power system with Rankine cycle, the energy efciency is increased to 58.0% from 10.2%, and the
exergy efciency is increased to 15.2% from 12.5%.

Energy and exergy analysis can just evaluate the system performance in view of thermodynamics. Obviously, either thermal energy, cold energy or mechanical energy is equivalent, but this
may not be true in the view of practical engineering. So an economical analysis is needed to evaluate the engineering practicability of the system. The major factors that need to be taken into
consideration for economic evaluation are its initial investment,
operating and maintenance costs, fuel price and the price of energy
purchased and sold. The capital costs of various plant items of the
present system are listed in Table 5. Because annual consumed natural gas is very small (55 GJ), it can be supplied by using LNG or
CNG. In China, the price of natural gas is 2.5 RMB/N m3 after considering transportation and gasication costs. The energy prices to
be applied in the economical analysis are determined as heat price
HP 54 RMB/GJ, cold price CP 69 RMB/GJ and domestic hot water
price HWP 35 RMB/GJ. Otherwise, the MC of the system is assumed at the rate of 0.03 RMB/GJ. The interest rate is 5.85%,
which is released by China Central Bank in December, 2007. The
calculation results of the thermo-economic analysis of the solar hybrid system are listed in Table 6. When the annual worth for the
life cycle cost is calculated, the life cycle is assumed to be 30 years
and the remaining value of equipments is assumed to be 4% of capital cost.
Table 6 shows a UA of 141170 RMB and PP of 18.61 years for
this system. When compared to similar investigations in other hybrid solar applications reported by others [6], in which PP of
approximately 20 years were achieved, it appears low. The main
reason is that this case has a higher energy utilization rate and larger duty than the other applications. Two of the main factors that
inuence the thermal economy of the system are the interest rate
and the energy price. Fig. 10 shows the UA and PP of the present
system with respect to different interest rate. The UA increases almost in directly proportional to the interest rate. While the PP
forms a log curve and increases rapidly after the interest rate is larger than 6%. If there is no inuence of interest rate, the value of UA
is only 64130 RMB and PP is 11.14 years. To analyze the inu-

Fig. 9. Losses in different components of system: (a) energy and (b) exergy.

Table 6
Cash ow analysis parameters for the present system.
Parameters

Calculation expression

Value (PMB )

Capital cost
Annual power generation income
Annual refrigeration income
Annual heating income
Annual domestic hot water income
Annual natural gas cost
Annual MC cost
Annual worth for the life cycle cost
Payback period

CIC
P _
C power P power  W
E
P _
C cool P cool  Q cool
P _
C heat P heat  Q heat
P
C hotwater P hotwater  Q_ hotwater
Cfuel
P _
C MC 0:03  W
E

1996,500
84,126
14,565
29,798
56,931
4006
2524
141,170
18.61 (year)

UA
PP

H. Zhai et al. / Applied Energy 86 (2009) 13951404

Fig. 10. Variations in the unicost and payback periods with different interest rate.

1403

(ii) Under given conditions, the annual performance analysis is

carried out with regard to Dunhuang, a city in northwestern
China. With sufcient collector area and good solar radiation, the annual natural gas consumption is only 1600 m3
and can be supplied by LNG or CNG technique. It is found
that highest energy and exergy destruction occurs in solar
collector. The system energy and exergy reaches 58.0% and
15.2%, respectively. Compared with those of solar thermal
power system with Rankine cycle, both the energy efciency
and exergy efciency increase. Particularly the energy efciency increases 5.7 times.
(iii) To evaluate the thermal economics of hybrid solar heating,
cooling and power generation system, annual worth for
the life cycle cost UA and payback period PP are calculated
in this paper. With the interest rate of 5.85% and natural
gas price of 2.5 RMB/N m3, the PP of the designed system
is 18.61 years. After analysis the inuences of interest rate
and energy price on UA and PP, we believe that the decrease
of interest rate and increase of energy price will accelerate
the development and application of this kind of system in
the western China.

Acknowledgements
This work was supported by project from Ministry of Education,
China under the Contract No. NCET-06-0387, the key project of Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality,
Shanghai, PR China (No. 06JC14040).

References

Fig. 11. Variations in the unicost and payback periods with different energy prices.

ences of energy price on UA and PP, it is assumed all the energy

price increase with the same rate. The UA and PP of the present
system with different interest rate is shown in Fig. 11. The increase
of UA is very slightly due to the gas assumption is very small every
year. After the energy price rises by 50%, the PP is less than 10 years
and such a case is applicable in practice.

5. Conclusions
In this study, a hybrid solar heating, cooling and power generation system based on helical screw expander and silica gelwater
adsorption chiller is proposed. Its main application is to utilize solar energy and supplied energy for remote off-grid locations. With
regard to a typical city in Gansu province, energy, exergy and cost
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600 W/m2 and collector area of 600 m2, and is sufcient
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and exergy destruction is the highest except those in solar
collector.

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