- Previous Article
- Next Article
- Table of Contents
Solar Energy, Vol.178, 1-16, 2019
Thermoeconomic assessment of a novel integrated CHP system incorporating solar energy based biogas-steam reformer with methanol and hydrogen production
This paper deals with a novel solar-biogas fueled combined heat and power system with methanol and hydrogen production. The proposed energy system consists following subsystems: solar based biogas-steam reformer, gas turbine cycle, Rankine and organic Rankine cycles, pressure swing adsorption, carbon capture and sequestration and methanol synthesis unit. The selected solar system is molten salt tower-based concentrated solar thermal plant that provides required thermal energy for reforming process. The multigeneration system is comprehensive analyzed thermoeconomically and exergoenvironmentally. A parametric study is conducted to find the effects of key parameters on the system performance. The considered key parameters include steam to carbon ratio of reforming process, operating temperature and pressure of reformer. The results show that T-r is the most effective parameters for improving system performance. A 200 K increase in reforming temperature, from 923 K to 1123 K, leads to decreases of 15% and 10% in the energy and exergy efficiencies, respectively. The opposite trend is observed for net power output and mass flow rate of produced methanol when key parameters change. Nevertheless, mass flow rate of produced methanol plays most important role for evaluating energy and exergy efficiencies. Also, gas turbine cycle and reformer have highest exergy destruction rate of 140 MW and 134 MW, respectively when system operates in optimum condition. Moreover, best exergoenvironmental parameters are obtained at higher value of reforming temperature and lower values of reforming pressure and steam to carbon ratio of reforming process.