Study on the Performance of Photovoltaic/Thermal Collector–Heat Pump–Absorption Chiller Tri-Generation Supply System

Abstract

The solar energy supply system has played an increasingly substantial role in realizing nearly zero-carbon buildings. In order to overcome the impact of solar randomness on the energy supply of a distributed solar system, this paper proposes a solar tri-generation supply system which integrates a photovoltaic/thermal collector (PV/T), a heat pump (HP), and an absorption chiller (AC). The PV/T-HP integration system is adopted to provide stable heating for a building and AC. The system model is established in TRNSYS software, and its performance is evaluated based on energy, exergy, and economic aspects. The results demonstrate that the system effectively meets the load demand, with an energy efficiency of 32.98% and an exergy efficiency of 17.62%. The payback period (PP) is 7.77 years. Compared with the systems proposed in the other literature, the performance of the proposed system has a certain extent of advantage. Furthermore, the equipment and system exergy performance decline with an increase in the intensity of solar radiation. Increasing the PV/T area effectively improves the system’s profitability within the actual roof area limitation of the building. Moreover, increasing the capacity of the low-temperature heat pump after 68 kW improves the system efficiency and reduces the payback period. In summary, this paper proposes an efficient distributed solar energy system that is suitable for urban building energy supply.