Thermo-economic evaluation and multi-objective optimization of a waste heat driven combined cooling and power system based on a modified Kalina cycle

Abstract Due to the decisive role of combined cooling and power (CCP) systems in improving the overall system efficiency and also the ability of the Kalina cycle to recover waste heat from low-temperature heat sources, an innovative CCP system is investigated in this study. The system consists of a modified Kalina cycle and a double-effect absorption refrigeration cycle driven by the exhaust gases of an internal combustion engine. The merits of the proposed system are demonstrated through the energy and exergy analysis. In addition, using a multi-objective genetic algorithm, the system performance is optimized for maximum exergy efficiency and the minimum total cost rate. Through the exgeoeconomic analysis, the low value of the exergoeconomic factor in the boiler, Recuperator 1 and 2, and the turbine indicates that the cost of exergy destruction in these components is higher than their investment expenditures. The optimization results reveal that under the optimal conditions, the exergy efficiency of the proposed CCP system and its total cost rate are 54.37% (2.22% improvement) and 110.76 $/hr (8.16% reduction), respectively. Consequently, due to the optimal selection of the variables, the products of the proposed system are produced at lower prices. So that, the levelized cost of the generated Power (LCOP) and that of the provided cooling are decreased by 11.73% and 4.15%, respectively.