Performance assessment of solar tower collector based integrated system for the cogeneration of power and cooling

Integrating solar energy systems is an essential measure in advancing worldwide sustainability objectives and offers a sustainable, environmentally friendly approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and pollutants. To this direction, the proposed system integrating solar tower collector, supercritical CO₂, organic Rankine cycle, and single effect absorption refrigeration cycles shows potential as an efficient and sustainable solution for meeting energy and cooling demands. A detailed thermodynamic evaluation has been performed to gain valuable understanding of the energy and exergy performance, enabling the assessment of thermal and exergy efficiencies, exergy destructions, and heat losses. Results show that this study found the thermal efficiency of the proposed system to be 47.35 % for R245fa, 48.59 % for R123, and 52.32 % for toluene. In addition, the exergy efficiency was obtained at 40.99 % for R245fa, 42.41 % for R123, and 46.67 % when toluene is used as a working fluid. With all investigated working fluids of organic Rankine cycle, toluene achieved the highest thermal and exergy efficiency of the proposed power-cooling cogeneration system, while R245fa achieved the lowest energetic and exergetic performance. Among the various ORC working fluids investigated under operating conditions, toluene demonstrated the highest turbine power output (3202 kW), whereas R245fa exhibited the lowest turbine power output (2804 kW). The refrigeration output for all ORC working fluids studied was found to be 988.8 kW. Additionally, the primary contributor of exergy destruction rate in the proposed system was determined to be the solar tower receiver, contributing 73.24 %, 67.80 %, and 66.19 % to the total for the toluene, R123, and R245fa working fluids, respectively.