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Article history: The trigeneration systems are widely used owing to high efficiency, low greenhouse gas emission and
Received 13 January 2016 high reliability. Especially, those trigeneration systems taking renewable energy as primary input are
Received in revised form 20 May 2016 paid more and more attention. This paper presents a feasible trigeneration system, which realizes bio-
Accepted 22 May 2016
mass and solar energy integrating effective utilization according to energy cascade utilization and energy
level upgrading of chemical reaction principle. In the proposed system, the solar energy with mid-and-
low temperature converted to the chemical energy of bio-gas through gasification process, then the
Keywords:
bio-gas will be taken as the fuel for internal combustion engine (ICE) to generate electricity. The jacket
Biomass gasification
Solar energy
water as a byproduct generated from ICE is utilized in a liquid desiccant unit for providing desiccant
Internal combustion engine capacity. The flue gas is transported into an absorption chiller and heat exchanger consequently, supply-
Trigeneration system ing chilled water and domestic hot water. The thermodynamic performance of the trigeneration system
System integrating was investigated by the help of Aspen plus. The results indicate that the overall energy efficiency and the
electrical efficiency of the proposed system in case study are 77.4% and 17.8%, respectively. The introduc-
tion of solar energy decreases the consumption of biomass, and the solar thermal energy input fraction is
8.6%. In addition, the primary energy saving ratio and annual total cost saving ratio compared with the
separated generation system are 16.7% and 25.9%, respectively.
2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction when heat input was primarily from a two-tank molten-salt stor-
age and Rankine cycle showed better performance than Kalina
Recently, fossil fuels have been the main primary energy in the cycle when the heat input was only from the solar receiver. Calise
worldwide. However a series of serious problems have occurred et al. [5] designed and simulated a novel prototype of a 6 kWe solar
due to over utilization of fossil fuels, such as CO2 emission, climate power plant, mainly consisting of flat-plate evacuated solar collec-
change and ecological balance disruption. Therefore, various tors and a small Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) to evaluate the
renewable energy resources are drawn increased attention for energy and economic performance of the system. At the same time,
their environmental advantages, especially solar energy and bio- many researchers have investigated the possible of thermo-
mass energy, have been widely used as a result of their unique chemical utilization of solar energy. Steinfeld [6] summarized
advantages, such as cleanliness, safety, abundant reserves and so and reviewed the current research on thermo-chemical production
on [13]. of hydrogen by solar energy. Hong et al. [7] analyzed the perfor-
For solar energy utilization, mid-and-low solar thermal utiliza- mance of a new solar thermal power cycle combined with
tion technology obtains the widespread attention for its good ther- middle-temperature solar thermal energy and methanol decompo-
mal performance and economy. The solar energy can not only be sition and concluded that the novel system was more competitive
used as heating driving resource, such as evaporation and recuper- compared with conventional power system. Xu et al. [8] developed
ation processes, but also can be used for chemical processes, like a novel combined cooling heating and power system integrated
decomposition and reforming. Modi et al. [4] compared the ther- with mid-and-low temperature solar energy thermo-chemical pro-
modynamic performance of the Kalina cycle for a central receiver cess and the methanol decomposition, and presented an energy
solar thermal power with direct steam generation and a Rankine and exergy analysis to investigate the performance of the system.
cycle, and emphasized that Kalina cycle showed a clear advantage Zhang et al. [9,10] proposed a solar-assisted methane chemically
recuperated gas turbine system, which converted the low temper-
Corresponding authors. ature solar heat into vapor latent heat and then via the reforming
E-mail addresses: lhq@hnu.edu.cn (H. Li), gqzhang@hnu.edu.cn (G. Zhang). reactions to the syngas chemical energy. Liu et al. [11] studied a
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2016.05.063
0196-8904/ 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
X. Zhang et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 122 (2016) 7484 75
Nomenclature
hydrogen production with the integration of methanol steam modeled and optimized a biomass steam gasification system,
reforming and middle-temperature solar thermal energy based which include two main parts: solar assisted steam production
on experiments. The research results showed that the chemical part and micro gas turbine power generation part. The solar collec-
conversion of methanol could reach levels higher than 90% and tor generates high temperature steam (8001200 C) as the gasifier
the maximum hydrogen yield per mole of methanol was 2.65 agent. The research results showed that, the overall system perfor-
2.90 mol. mance can be improved by such an integrating way. Tanaka et al.
Biomass is the plant material derived from the photosynthesis [26] presented a hybrid power generation system coupling bio-
between CO2, water and sunlight to produce carbohydrates mass gasification and concentrated solar collecting processes, the
[12,13], thus it is renewable and carbonneutral resource. Biomass generated bio-gas was taken as fuel in a gas turbine in a further
has some other advantages such as abundant in resources, widely way. Utilizing the molten-nitrate salt as heat carrier to absorb
distributed, environmental friendly. One of the most potential the heat from the receiver in molten salt heat storage system,
technology of biomass utilization is gasification, by which biomass the heat is used for producing steam for Rankine cycle and is con-
can be transformed into bio-gas. The bio-gas can be used as a feed- verted to electricity. Ravaghi-Ardebili et al. [27] investigated the
stock for the production of chemicals or power [1417]. In order to efficiency of biomass gasification process on low temperature con-
realize biomass gasification, gasifying agent like air, steam, or oxy- dition, which coupled with a Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plant.
gen will be required. As the most availability and economy gasify- As a heated working fluid molten salt produced the steam
ing agent, air is widely used in demonstration or commercial scale (410 C) to participate in the gasification reaction. Angrisani
biomass gasification [15,18,19]. However, in this way, due to the et al. [28] presented a new concept solar-biomass cogeneration
introduction of nitrogen, the bio-gas has a low heating value. The system using a Stirling engine for the combined production of
use of oxygen is not economical owing to the high cost of oxygen the heat and electric power. As a biomass combustion chamber,
production, although it can increase the bio-gas heating value. the fluidized bed simultaneously absorbed the heat concentrated
Gasification with steam can produce bio-gas with a heating value from the solar collector. The Stirling engine converted the heat col-
of 1014 MJ/Nm3. However, this process is an endothermic reac- lected in the fluidized bed into mechanical and then electrical
tion, which needs extra heat to sustain the gasification reaction. power.
To summarize, airsteam gasification process may be a better In addition to the combined heating and power system inte-
way to realize gasification. The combustion reaction provides the grated with biomass and solar energy, some studies have also
required heat for gasification, which is termed as auto-thermal investigated producing synthetic fuels in polygeneration systems.
process. Bai et al. [29] investigated the thermodynamic analysis and the
Combined cooling, heating and power (CCHP) system combines economic performances of a solar-driven biomass gasification
distributed power generation with thermally activated equipments polygeneration system for the methanol production and the power
to meet the cooling, heating and power needs for users. It has been generation. The solar-biomass gasifier produced raw bio-gas
used worldwide because of its high efficiency, low greenhouse gas through absorbing the solar thermal energy reflected by heliostats.
(GHG) emission and high reliability [2022]. In recent years, com- The purified bio-gas was used for the methanol production as syn-
bined heat and power (CHP) systems based on biomass and solar gas, while the un-reacted syngas would be used for power genera-
energy have been widely concerned [2,23,24]. Pablo et al. [25] tion. And the results indicated that the energy and exergy
76 X. Zhang et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 122 (2016) 7484
efficiency of the proposed system approximately reached to 56.09% ation system indicates that the trigeneration system is mostly inte-
and 54.86%, respectively. Hertwich et al. [30] presented a new con- grated with biomass combustion and Organic Rankine Cycle, while
cept of producing synfuel from biomass using concentrating solar the research focusing on biomass gasification and Otto Cycle inte-
energy, which contained 6 main parts: steam gasifier, reverse grated trigeneration system which driven by biomass and solar
water gas shift, hydrocarbon synthesis, heat recovery and steam energy is relatively fewer.
generation, and solar power system. The molten-salt provided In this paper, a small-medium trigeneration system coupled
the high temperature heat for gasification, which was obtained with biomass gasification and solar thermal process is suggested
from solar power system, and the H2 for reverse water gas shift and discussed. In the proposed system, the mid-and-low tempera-
reaction was generated by electrolyzing water driven by solar ture solar thermal energy is transformed into the chemical energy
power. And they modeled the production of methanol in the pro- of bio-gas by gasification process, utilizing the sensible heat of bio-
posed system compared with the traditional system only using gas to produce a part of domestic hot water. The internal combus-
biomass or coal as a fuel. Guo et al. [31] studied the energetic tion engine (ICE) is driven by the bio-gas to generate electricity.
and environmental performance of the solar hybrid coal and bio- Then, the flue gas is sent to absorption chiller and heat exchanger
mass to liquid system integrated with a solar hybrid dual fluidized consequently to generate chilled water and domestic hot water.
bed gasifier, the olivine was used as bed material in the gasifier to The jacket water derived from ICE is utilized in a liquid desiccant
transfer the heat from combustion reactor and/or solar receiver to unit for dehumidification. So as to evaluate the system perfor-
gasification reactor, and using storage units to compensate the mance, the thermodynamic and economic performances of the tri-
influence of solar radiation. The purified syngas was fed into a Fis- generation system are studied. Several key system integrating
cherTropsch (FT) reactor to produce FT liquid, and the un-reacted parameters are investigated, including equivalence ratio (ER),
gas was burned to generate power in the gas turbine. steam/biomass ratio (SBR), air preheating temperature, solar col-
At the same time, some researchers have studied the combined lector temperature and fuel price.
cooling, heating and power (CCHP) system integrated with bio-
mass and solar energy. Karellas et al. [32] investigated the thermo-
dynamic and economic analysis of a trigeneration system using 2. System flowsheet description
biomass and solar energy, which consisted of an Organic Rankine
Cycle (ORC) and a vapor compression cycle (VCC). Khalid et al. The flowsheet of the suggested system is shown in Fig. 1. The
[33] reported that the energy and exergy analysis of an integrated system consists of three main parts: (1) airsteam biomass gasifi-
multigeneration system using biomass and solar energy. It con- cation and purification subsystem, which contains a fluidized bed
tained two Rankine and gas turbine cycles, as well as an absorption gasifier, a biomass preheater, a cyclone separator, an air splitter
cooling cycle. Biomass combustion drove Gas turbine cycles to pro- and heat exchangers (HX-1 and HX-2); (2) steam generation sub-
duce electrical power and the oil heated by concentrated solar col- system, which contains a parabolic trough solar collector and a
lector provided Rankine cycle 2 and absorption cooling cycle with pump; (3) internal combustion engine power generation subsys-
thermal energy. They concluded that system efficiency had an tem, which contains an internal combustion engine, a LiBrH2O
obvious improvement compared with a single renewable energy absorption chiller, a liquid desiccant unit and a heat exchanger
source. The literature survey on biomass and solar-driven trigener- (HX-3).
Fig. 1. Flowsheet of a trigeneration system with solar energy and biomass coupling utilization.
X. Zhang et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 122 (2016) 7484 77
The bio-gas consists of H2, CO, CO2, CH4, H2O, and tar formation Equipment investment cost (Yuan/kW)a Gasification subsystemb 2500
is disregarded. Gas ICE 4800
Absorption chiller 1200
Char only contains carbon and ash, and ash is used to be inert Electric chiller 970
material. Boiler 375
The sulfur and nitrogen go to H2S and NH3 respectively. Solar collectorc 4525
Gaswater HX 400
Waterwater HX 210
The main chemical reactions that occurred in the biomass gasi-
Liquid desiccant unit 1200
fication process are presented in Table 1.
Economic Interest rate (%) 6.15
In this study, rice husk is selected as the biomass material.
Service life (year) 20
Table 2 shows biomass material characteristics used in the simula- Maintenance cost ratiod (%) 2.5
tion process [34]. To analyze the thermodynamic performance of Operating hourse (h) 2000
the trigeneration system, a case study is investigated (the biomass Fuel cost Biomass (Yuan/ton) 350
Natural gas (Yuan/kW h) 0.194
Electricity (Yuan/kW h) 0.936
Table 1
a
Gasification reactions of biomass. 1US$ = 6.12 Yuan (RMB).
b
The gasification subsystem includes the gasifier and the gas conditioning, the
Reaction name Reaction equation Heat of reaction former accounts for 95% of the investment, and the latter accounts for 5% of the
(kJ/mol) investment.
c
Carbon partial combustion C + 0.5O2 M CO 111 The initial investment cost of the solar collector field includes the solar col-
Carbon combustion C + O2 M CO2 393 lector, the related equipment investment and the solar collector land. The cost of
Hydrogen partial combustion H2 + 0.5O2 M H2O 242 solar collector and related equipment is 1225 Yuan/m2; the area of solar collector
Boudouard C + CO2 M 2CO +172 land is three times that of the solar collector, and the cost of solar collector land is
Methanation C + 2H2 M CH4 75 225 Yuan/m2.
d
Water gas C + H2O M CO + H2 +131 The maintenance cost ratio is the ratio of the maintenance cost to the invest-
CO shift CO + H2O M CO2 + H2 41 ment cost.
e
Steam-methane reforming CH4 + H2O M CO + 3H2 +206 The annual operating hours of the trigeneration system is determined by the
H2S formation S + H2 M H2S solar collector subsystem, according to [29], the annual operating hours of solar
NH3 formation 0.5N2 + 1.5H2 M NH3 collector subsystem is 2000 h.
78 X. Zhang et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 122 (2016) 7484
To analyze the thermodynamic and economic performances Qb is the biomass energy input of the trigeneration system, kW;
and the influences of the related parameters, the simulation and mb is the mass flow rate of biomass, kg/h; Qsol is the solar energy
analysis procedures are shown in Fig. 2. The inputs conditions con- absorbed by steam generation subsystem, kW; LHVb is the lower
sist of system assumptions, biomass characteristics, key operating heating value of biomass, kJ/kg; the lower heating value is calcu-
and economic parameters. By mean of the Aspen Plus simulator, lated as [39]:
the thermodynamic performances including energy and exergy
LHV b HHV b 21:978 H 3
analysis are calculated. At the same time, the equipment capacity
of different components can also be obtained by Aspen Plus, which where HHVb is the higher heating value of biomass, MJ/kg; H is the
contributes to computing the economic indicators including percentage of hydrogen in the biomass material, %.
annual total cost and annual total cost saving ratio. Moreover, Besides the overall energy efficiency, the exergy efficiency of
the effects of relevant parameters on the proposed system perfor- trigeneration system is defined as:
mances can also be analyzed through the simulation.
W EX d EX c EX de
gex 100%
EX sol EX b
3.2. Performance evaluation criteria
W EX d EX c EX de
100% 4
EX sol b mb LHV b
In the proposed system, the overall energy efficiency is selected
as an evaluation indicator of the thermodynamic performance of where EXd is the domestic hot water exergy of the system, kW; EXc
trigeneration system, which can be defined as: is the cooling exergy of the system, EXde is the desiccant exergy of
the system, kW; EXsol is the solar thermal exergy of the system;
W Q c Q d Q de
g 100% EXb is the biomass exergy of the system; b is the multiplication fac-
Q b Q sol
tor, which can be calculated as [40]:
W Q c Q d Q de
100% 1
mb LHV b Q sol b
1:044 0:0160H=C 0:3493O=C1 0:0531H=C 0:0493N=C
O=C 6 2
1 0:4124O=C
Furthermore, the electrical efficiency has been calculated as: 5
W
gel 100% 2 where C, H, O, N are the mass fraction of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen
LHV b mb Q sol
and nitrogen of biomass in ultimate analysis, respectively.
where W is the electricity generation of the trigeneration system, The primary energy saving ratio (PESR) is selected to compare
kW; Qc is the cooling generation of the trigeneration system, kW; the performance between trigeneration system and separated gen-
Qd is domestic hot water generation of the trigeneration system, eration system with the same products. The primary energy saving
kW; Qde is the desiccant capacity of the trigeneration system, kW; ratio can be defined as:
LHV g V g In the case system, the relevant parameters are as follows: air
CGE 100% 8
LHV b mb equivalence ratio (ER): 0.4, steam/biomass ratio (SBR): 0.4, gasifi-
where CGE is the cold gas efficiency, %; LHVg is the lower heating cation temperature: 890 C, gasification pressure: 0.1 MPa. As we
value of bio-gas, kJ/Nm3; Vg is the volume flow rate of bio-gas in can see from Table 5, the input, output and system performance
the standard state, Nm3/h; mb is the mass flow rate of biomass, are listed. For the trigeneration system, in the case of input
kg/h; LHVb is the lower heating value of biomass, kJ/kg. 5076 kW biomass energy, it consumes extra solar energy of
The annual total cost of the proposed system consists of three 477 kW to provide the steam for biomass gasification process.
parts: annual initial capital cost, maintenance cost and operation The input of solar energy reduces the consumption of biomass,
cost. Both the initial capital cost and maintenance cost are function which makes the solar thermal energy fraction reaches to 8.6%.
of equipment capacities. The annual total cost of the trigeneration With the same products, the trigeneration system saves more pri-
system can be calculated as: mary energy than separated generation system, the primary
X energy saving ratio reaches to 16.7%. And the overall energy effi-
ATC tri R Ni C i C tri;M Q b C b 9 ciency is 77.4% by utilizing biomass energy and solar energy.
Through Aspen Plus simulation, it can calculate the inputs and
And the annual total cost of the separated generation system outputs exergy of the trigeneration system, which contributes to
can be calculated as: determining the exergy efficiency of the proposed system. The
X
ATC sep R Nj C j C sep;M WC e Q gas C gas 10 total exergy efficiency of the proposed system is 19.2%, which is
approximately 9.8% higher than the separated system (17.3%).
where N and C are the installed capacity and the investment cost of The heating sources of absorption chiller and liquid desiccant unit
the equipment respectively (kW and Yuan/kW); i and j are the in the proposed system are from waste heat of ICE, while the
Table 5
Calculation results of trigeneration system.
energy source of electrical refrigerator is from high grade electric- ature increases with the increase in the equivalence ratio. As we
ity. From the perspective of the waste heat utilization, in spite of know, steam gasification requires sufficient heat for endothermic
the lower energy grade of flue gas and jacket water, the absorption gasification reaction. The higher air flow rate contributes to gener-
refrigeration and liquid desiccant technology make full use of the ating more combustion heat, which is favorable to steam gasifica-
waste heat. And these measures also improve the exergy efficiency tion reaction. When keeping equivalence ratio constant, the
of the proposed system. endothermic reaction of watergas and steam-methane reforming
Moreover, the equipment capacity of the components could be are strengthened with the increase in the steam flow rate, then
determined in the case study. The initial capital cost of system can leading to the decrease in gasification temperature.
be calculated by the equipment investment cost in Table 4, thus
the operation cost and maintenance cost can be obtained by the 4.2. Effect of SBR on the bio-gas composition
economic formula subsequently. Finally, the annual total cost
and annual total cost saving ratio are determined based on the Fig. 4 shows the variation of bio-gas composition as a function
above results. In the case study, it shows that the annual initial of the SBR over the range of 04.0. With the increase in steam/bio-
capital cost of the proposed system is larger than the separated mass ratio, the content of N2 and CO decrease gradually, and H2
generation system, while the operation cost is obviously lower and CO2 content increase gradually. However, the variation of
than the separated generation system. The annual total cost saving CH4 content is not obvious, though the trend is decreasing. With
ratio (ATCSR) is approximately 25.9% compared with the separated the increase in steam flow rate, the reaction of watergas and CO
generation system. shift is enhanced, which consumes more steam and CO and pro-
These results indicate that, the novel trigeneration system with duces more H2 and CO2. Although keeping the equivalence ratio
the combination of renewable energy can improve the overall constant, the mole of combustible gas increases. Therefore the N2
energy efficiency of system and provide various products for content introduced by the air is diluted in the bio-gas. And the
customers. reaction of steam-methane reforming is strengthened with the
increase in steam flow rate, which decreases the CH4 content.
4. Discussion
4.3. Effect of SBR on the bio-gas yield with various ERs
In order to know better about the novel system, air equivalence
ratio (ER), steam/biomass ratio (SBR), air preheating temperature, Fig. 5 depicts the effect of steam/biomass ratio on bio-gas yield
solar collector temperature and fuel price are selected as key oper- at different ER. With the increase in steam flow rate, the reaction of
ating parameters to analyze the performance of the proposed water gas and CO shift is enhanced, which promotes the yield of
system. bio-gas. As shown in Fig. 5, the bio-gas yield increases significantly
with the increase in steam/biomass ratio. For example, when keep-
ing equivalence ratio at 0.35, the bio-gas yield increases from 2.22
4.1. Effect of SBR on the gasification temperature with various ERs
to 3.45. While increases from 3.88 to 7.52 at ER of 0.5. Moreover,
due to the introduction of N2 in the air, the gas yield enhances.
Gasification temperature is critical for airsteam gasification
However, the increase in bio-gas yield is not obvious with the
process. Both air flow rate and steam flow rate have an effect on
increase in ER. For example, the bio-gas yield increases from 3.45
gasification temperature in the adiabatic condition. In this study,
to 3.88 at SBR of 1.0.
the gasification temperature is varied from 700 C to 1000 C.
And the performance analysis is performed in the range of
0.35 6 ER 6 0.5 and 0 6 SBR 6 4.0. 4.4. Effect of SBR on the cold gas efficiency with various ERs
Fig. 3 illustrates the effects of steam/biomass ratio (SBR) and
equivalence ratio (ER) on the gasification temperature. It can be Cold gas efficiency is an important indicator to evaluate the per-
seen that the high equivalence ratio and low steam/biomass ratio formance of the gasifier. Fig. 6 presents the cold gas efficiency
favor the increase in gasification temperature. With the increase (CGE) at different steam/biomass ratios and equivalence ratios of
in SBR, the gasification temperature decreases. In addition, the the gasification process. Either the increase in the steam/biomass
equivalence ratio has a significant effect as the gasification temper- ratio or the equivalence ratio leads to the decrease in cold gas effi-
1050
Bio-gas Composition (mol. %, dry basis )
50
ER=0.35 N2
1000 ER=0.4
)
ER=0.45 40
950
Gasification Temperature (
ER=0.5
900 30
H2
850
20 CO2
800
10
750
CO
700 0 CH4
650 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0
Steam/Biomass Ratio Steam/Biomass Ratio
Fig. 3. Effect of SBR on the gasification temperature with various ERs. Fig. 4. Effect of SBR on the bio-gas composition (ER = 0.4).
X. Zhang et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 122 (2016) 7484 81
8 90
ER=0.35 ER=0.4
ER=0.35 ER=0.4
88 ER=0.45 ER=0.5
ER=0.45 ER=0.5
84
6
82
5 80
78
4 76
74
3
72
2 70
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0
Steam/Biomass Ratio Steam/Biomass Ratio
Fig. 7. Effect of SBR on the overall energy efficiency with various ERs.
Fig. 5. Effect of SBR on the bio-gas yield with various ERs.
30
55
20
50
10
45
0
40 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0
Steam/Biomass Ratio Steam/Biomass Ratio
Fig. 6. Effect of SBR on the cold gas efficiency of bio-gas with various ERs. Fig. 8. Effect of SBR on the solar thermal energy input fraction for various solar
collector temperatures.
ciency. The cold gas efficiency experiences a obvious reduction biomass ratio at different solar collector temperature. The solar
when the equivalence ratio is increased. For example, the cold thermal energy input fraction can be reached up to 48.1% when
gas efficiency decreases from 63.7% to 45.8% with the increase in steam/biomass varies from 0 to 4.0 at solar collector temperature
ER from 0.35 to 0.5, when keeping the steam/biomass ratio at of 350 C. In addition, it can be seen from Fig. 7 that with the
1.0. Similarly, with the increase in steam flow rate, the cold gas increase in ER, the overall energy efficiency increases. For example,
efficiency decreases rapidly at low value of ER, then decreases the overall energy efficiency increases from 77.2% to 82.3% with
slowly at high value of ER. As can be seen from Fig. 6, the cold the increase in ER from 0.35 to 0.5, when keeping the steam/bio-
gas efficiency varies from 67.0% to 64.1% at ER of 0.35, and varies mass ratio at 1.0.
from 45.8% to 43.8% at ER of 0.5.
4.6. Effect of SBR on the primary energy saving ratio with various ERs
4.5. Effect of SBR on the overall energy efficiency and solar thermal
energy input fraction The effect of SBR on the primary energy saving ratio (PESR) at
different ER is shown in Fig. 9. Primary energy saving ratio (PESR)
The curves presented in Fig. 7 show the variation of overall has been calculated to assess the performance between trigenera-
energy efficiency at different SBR and ER. The increase in steam/ tion system and conventional separated generation system. Fig. 9
biomass ratio causes the increase in overall energy efficiency on presents that PESR decreases with the increase in SBR and ER.
account of solar thermal energy input. Obviously, the high steam When the gasification process operates at a lower steam and air
flow rate requires more solar thermal energy input. Because the flow rate, the PESR drops obviously with the increase in steam/bio-
solar collector provides the heat to raise the temperature of steam, mass ratio, but decreases slowly with the increase in steam/bio-
therefore the consumption of biomass material could be reduced. mass ratio. As can be seen from Fig. 9 that the PESR decreases
Solar thermal energy input fraction is selected to evaluate the con- from 19.5% to 15.5% with increase in SBR from 0 to 1.0 at ER of
tribution of solar thermal energy. As shown in Fig. 8 the solar ther- 0.35, however decreases from 13.7% to 12.9% with increase in
mal energy input fraction increases with the increase in steam/ SBR from 1.0 to 4.0 at ER of 0. 5. And PESR decreases to a constant
82 X. Zhang et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 122 (2016) 7484
Efficiency (%)
17
PESR (%)
60
16 50
15 40
30
14
20
13
10
12 0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
Steam/Biomass Ratio Steam/Biomass Ratio
Fig. 9. Effect of SBR on the primary energy saving ratio with various ERs. Fig. 11. Effect of SBR on the system efficiency (ER = 0.4).
value of 12.9% when the SBR increases from 2.5 to 4.0 at ER of 0.5.
The results show that the proposed system has an apparent advan- 4.8. Effect of air preheating temperature on the overall energy
tage to the separated generation system, especially for saving the efficiency with various ERs
fossil fuels.
The trigeneration system uses air and steam as gasification
4.7. Effect of SBR on the system products and efficiency agent, and the air preheating temperature has a significant impact
on the overall energy efficiency. Fig. 12 represents the variation of
Figs. 10 and 11 describe the distribution of system products and overall energy efficiency with the air preheating temperature at
efficiency at different SBR respectively. The results in Fig. 10 indi- different ER. As shown in Fig. 12, the higher temperature of air
cate that SBR has a significant influence on domestic hot water improves the gasification performance more. The overall energy
generation. As shown in Fig. 5, the bio-gas yield increases with efficiency increases from 77.8% to 82.8% with increase in air pre-
the increase in SBR when the solar collector temperature is main- heating temperature from 100 C to 500 C at ER of 0.4. Moreover,
tained at 350 C, therefore increasing the sensible heat of bio-gas the overall energy efficiency increases with the increase in ER. For
and the domestic hot water obtained by heat exchanger (HX-2). example, the overall energy efficiency increases from 77.2% to
Besides that, the electricity, cooling generation and desiccant 82.3% with increase in ER from 0.35 to 0.5 at air preheating tem-
capacity decrease with the increase in SBR, but not obviously. perature of 200 C.
Due to the decrease in lower heating value of bio-gas, the input
energy of ICE goes down while the bio-gas yield increases with 4.9. Effect of solar collector temperature on the overall energy
the increase in steam flow rate. Fig. 11 shows the system perfor- efficiency with various ERs
mance for various SBRs at ER of 0.4. The electrical efficiency
decreases with the increase in SBR, as it can be seen from Fig. 10, As mentioned above, the solar collector temperature has an
domestic hot water increases significantly compared with other important effect on the overall energy efficiency similarly. Fig. 13
products, consequently increasing the thermal efficiency with the illustrates the overall energy efficiency with solar collector tem-
increase in SBR. However the bio-gas yield increases with the perature at different ER. The solar collector provides heat with
increase in steam flow rate, the LHV of bio-gas is reduced, which
decreases the electrical efficiency.
90
ER=0.35
ER=0.4
Electricity
Overall Energy Efficiency (%)
ER=0.45
4000 Domestic hot water
ER=0.5
Cooling generation 85
Desiccant capacity
System Products (kW)
3000
80
2000
75
1000
70
0 100 200 300 400 500
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 Air Preheating Temperature ( )
Steam/Biomass Ratio
Fig. 12. Effect of air preheating temperature on the overall energy efficiency at
Fig. 10. Effect of SBR on the system products (ER = 0.4). different ER (SBR = 1.0).
X. Zhang et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 122 (2016) 7484 83
50
40
ATCSR (%)
80
30
20
10
75
100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 0
0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6
Solar Collector Temperature( )
The Change Multiple of Price
Fig. 13. Effect of solar collector temperature on the overall energy efficiency for
various ERs (SBR = 1.0). Fig. 15. The effect of fuel price on the annual total cost saving ratio.
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