Techno-economic assessment of a novel combined cooling, heating, and power (CCHP) system driven by solid oxide fuel cell and solar thermal utilization

Combined cooling, heating, and power (CCHP) systems have been developed for providing different grades of energy products by energy cascade utilization. Compared with traditional centralized energy systems, CCHP systems own the advantages of higher efficiency, more flexibility, and lower carbon emission. The coupling and evaluation of CCHP systems are generally complex, especially the CCHP systems involved in fuel cells and renewable energy. This study presents performance evaluation of a novel CCHP system driven by solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) and solar energy to investigate the system feasibility and sustainability. Energy, exergy, economic, and environmental analyses and comparison of the proposed system under two operating modes (mode 1 with solar thermal utilization, and mode 2 without solar thermal utilization) are carried out. The analysis results indicate that the system overall energy and exergy efficiencies of mode 1 are 87.59 % and 53.94 % under the design condition, and the levelized costs of electricity (LCOE) and product (LCOP) are 0.03952 $/kWh and 0.02666 $/kWh, respectively. Compared with mode 2, the utilization of solar energy in mode 1 contributes to a 9.38 % higher of system overall energy efficiency, and the LCOP and CO2 emission are decreased by 15.18 % and 6.96 %. Parametric study is further conducted to reveal the effects of key parameters on system performance and payback period (PBP), and the results demonstrate that the extra investment cost of solar utilization equipment leads to bigger system cost rate and longer PBP in mode 1 compared to mode 2.