Optimal Design of Inherently Safer Domestic Combined Heat and Power Systems

The residential co-generation system is a promising strategy to satisfy the electricity and hot water demands in residential complexes. This is an attractive option from both economic and environmental points of view; however, the associated risk has not been accounted for. It is very important to consider the risk associated with residential co-generation systems because the involved units use volatile fuels such as natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas. Therefore, this paper presents an optimization approach for designing residential co-generation systems through a multi-objective optimization formulation that simultaneously accounts for minimizing the total annual cost and the environmental impact as well as the associated risk to satisfy the electricity and hot water demands in a residential complex. The proposed model incorporates the optimal selection for the technologies used as well as the operation. A case study for a residential complex in Mexico is presented to show the applicability of the proposed approach, where it was shown to be possible to obtain attractive solutions from economic, environmental, and safety points of view.