Technical comparison of different solar-powered absorption chiller designs for co-supply of heat and cold networks

Large-scale absorption chillers are commonly used for supplying the demand of district cooling networks. In Northern Europe, in many cases, these chillers are driven by local district heating systems which are fed by co-generation waste incineration (WI) plants. Although this configuration performs much efficient during the cold months of the year, it is challenging to manage during the warm months when the operation load in district heating is low. The co-supply of the chillers with WI plant and solar heat is a smart tool to address this challenge provided that one clearly knows which configuration of the hybrid-driven chiller out of the several possible designs results in the best outcomes. This study presents a thorough techno-economic analysis and performance comparison of single-, double- and triple-effect absorption chillers driven by parabolic trough collectors and WI plants for trigeneration of cold, heat and power in a case study in Denmark. The results show that regardless of the absorption chiller type, the use of parabolic trough collectors solves the summer supply problem. Moreover, double- and triple-effect machines lead to a reduction of 45% and 50% in the price of the hybrid system in comparison with the single-effect design. Among the different configurations, the hybrid system integrated with triple-effect design shows the best performance by decreasing the required flow rate of municipal solid waste, and the number of required collectors, and consequently, decreasing the costs.