Exergy-energy, economic and environmental evaluation of a solid oxide fuel cell based trigeneration system using double effect vapor absorption refrigeration system

In this work, a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) and double-effect absorption refrigeration system (DVARS) have been implemented in conventional hybrid solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC)-gas turbines (GT) for applications like power generation, steam production, and cooling effects for industrial purposes. The performance of the proposed trigeneration system has been evaluated numerically on the basis of thermodynamic, economic, and environmental aspects using engineering equation software. The results show that by implementing the HRSG and DVARS in the conventional SOFC-GT system, energy efficiency, exergy efficiency, and the total cost of the proposed trigeneration plant (SOFC-GT-HRSG-DVARS) were enhanced by 36.51 %, 4.14 %, and 1.76 %, respectively. Additionally, cooling effects of 100 kW were obtained from the DVARS at 5 degrees C for general-purpose applications, and heating effects of 101.4 kW were obtained through the HRSG by generating saturated steam. However, the CO2 emission per MWh of output energy was reduced by 26.73 %.