Performance of Concentrating Photovoltaic-Thermal Solar Collectors for Cooling, Heating, and Power Generation System of an Industrial Complex

The energy used to provide cooling and heating is a significant part of the energy consumption of an industrial complex. This paper aims to evaluate the performance of a trigeneration solar-powered system to supply the air conditioning system of an industrial complex energy requirement. The proposed design includes a double-effect lithium bromide water absorption chiller, a heat pump, and concentrating photovoltaic-thermal solar collectors (CPVT). Absorption chillers with nominal capacity and coefficient of performance of 100 TR and 1.3, respectively, and a heat pump with a capacity of 30 TR have been used to meet the cooling demands. The solar system consists of linear Fresnel solar concentrators and triple-junction solar cells. The analysis has been conducted for the complex located southwest of Tehran, Iran. Dynamic system simulation is performed using TRNSYS and EES software. To compare the performance of the proposed collector, photovoltaic-thermal collectors without concentrators (PVT) and Thermal collectors with concentrators (CT) with the same coating surface have been investigated. The energy delivered by the proposed collector is 64% and 28% higher, respectively than the PVT and the CT collectors. Compared to a structure without solar energy utilization unit, the proposed design reduces energy consumption by 62%. Employment of the heat pump in this method reduces energy consumption by 58% compared system without it. The proposed collector electrical energy production in a year is 101.10 MWh. The proposed system needs 264.07 MWh of backup heating a year to meet all the complex air conditioning needs.