Thermodynamic analysis of a novel solar trigeneration system

Loop heat pipes (LHPs) are high efficiency devices which can be used in solar systems. The main objectives of this research are to propose a novel solar combined cooling heating and power (SCCHP) system based on loop heat pipe (LHP) evaporator, and to present thermodynamic analyses to effectively improve the utilization of loop heat pipes for distributed renewable energy sources. Also a parametric analysis is carried out to investigate the effect of the key variable parameters on the system performance for three operation modes (solar mode, solar and storage mode and storage mode). The results showed that, for the solar and solar and storage operation modes, the main source of the exergy destruction is the solar loop heat pipe evaporator while for the storage operation mode, the main source of the exergy destruction is the hot storage tank. The energy efficiency of the proposed system is 70.52% for the solar mode, 72.09% for the solar and storage mode, and 64.77% for the storage mode and the exergy efficiency of the proposed system is 12.36% for the solar mode, 14.78% for the solar and storage mode, and 47.45% for the storage mode.