Exergoenvironmental and Exergoeconomic Modelling and Assessment in the Complex Energy Systems

Traditionally energy systems were analyzed technically, but current environmental issues and considerations have put new constraints on the planning and managing of energy systems. Such an exergoeconomic and exergoenvironmental analysis were born. This analysis is aimed to describe the necessity and application of a new concept in environmental liability accounting based on physical quantities to overcome the weaknesses of the developed allocation methods and the internalization of external environmental damages. The proposed method is modified in environmental analysis to consider the effect of non-energy flows on a macro-surface energy system. As a case study, this method is tuned for a complex energy system. It has been shown that environmental responsibilities, calculated based on exergy destruction in order, represent the role of the units in the overall emission and contribution to integrated environmental management. The comparison shows that responsibilities are higher than emission reductions for service units, and the difference between duties and permits may not reflect the costs of internal damage. The exergoeconomic and exergoenvironmental analysis is used to model the concept of the system’s economic-environmental footprint in a quantitative process, which is the most crucial advantage of this method. This paper implements this method on a solar thermal power plant combined with the steam cycle system as a case study.