Conventional and Advanced Exergoeconomic Analysis of a Compound Ejector-Heat Pump for Simultaneous Cooling and Heating

Abstract

This work focused on a compound PV/T waste heat driven ejector-heat pump system for simultaneous data centre cooling and waste heat recovery for district heating. The system uses PV/T waste heat as the generator’s heat source, acting with the vapour generated in an evaporative condenser as the ejector drive force. Conventional and advanced exergy and advanced exergoeconomic analyses are used to determine the cause and avoidable degree of the components’ exergy destruction rate and cost rates. Regarding the conventional exergy analysis for the whole system, the compressor represents the largest exergy destruction source of 26%. On the other hand, the generator shows the lowest sources (2%). The advanced exergy analysis indicates that 59.4% of the whole system thermodynamical inefficiencies can be avoided by further design optimisation. The compressor has the highest contribution to the destruction in the avoidable exergy destruction rate (21%), followed by the ejector (18%) and condenser (8%). Moreover, the advanced exergoeconomic results prove that 51% of the system costs are unavoidable. In system components cost comparison, the highest cost comes from the condenser, 30%. In the same context, the ejector has the lowest exergoeconomic factor, and it should be getting more attention to reduce the irreversibility by design improving. On the contrary, the evaporator has the highest exergoeconomic factor (94%).

Keywords

• advanced exergy
• exergoeconomic
• compound ejector-vapour compression
• data centre cooling
• district heating
• photovoltaic thermal (PV/T)