Sustainable and environmentally-friendly multi-generation system of power, cooling, and hydrogen; Multi-objective optimization using particle swarm algorithm

Guaranteeing long-term sustainability and developing environmentally friendly systems can be addressed with multi-generation systems that use renewable energy sources. Accordingly, a parabolic trough solar collector field was used to drive an organic Rankine cycle-ejector refrigeration integration, a modified organic Rankine cycle by regenerator, and a proton exchange membrane electrolyzer to produce power, cooling, and hydrogen. The energy, exergy, and exergoeconomic approaches were applied to assess the designed system's feasibility. The Pentane-Butane zeotropic mixture was utilized to enhance the performance of the organic Rankine cycle-ejector refrigeration integration. Finally, multi-objective optimization is performed to reach the system's optimum operating conditions. The obtained results at the base conditions revealed that the designed plant could yield 1501 kW total net power, where 192.9 kW was produced by the modified organic Rankine cycle. Also, the cooling load and hydrogen production were obtained at about 433 kW and 3.71 kg/h. Moreover, the system reached 6.68% exergetic efficiency with 5.17 years payback period at the optimum state. According to the obtained results, the proposed plant can be feasible for construction that could help sustainable development plans.