Title: Geothermal and solar energy amalgamated multigeneration system escorting diverse needs of a district

Authors: Tahir Abdul Hussain Ratlamwala; Ammar Ahmed Raja; Subhan Raza Jaffry; Umair Zafar

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad 46000, Pakistan ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad 46000, Pakistan ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad 46000, Pakistan ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad 46000, Pakistan

Abstract: Geothermal wells and their integration with other renewable resources have been in use since long, but this study emphasises on; geothermal wells with lowered pressure heads which are potentially considered as 'low head wells'. Using a geothermal well with low temperature and pressure head alone is not suitable and economical. So, this paper explains a parabolic trough collector (PTC) with a meshed source of low temperature and pressure head geothermal water source for multi-generational purposes. The parameters that are variegated to change the output of the system are ambient temperature, solar irradiance, mass flow rate of the fluid, temperature gradient of the geothermal well. Since, the energy efficiency and exergy efficiency of these geothermal wells comes out to be 24% and 19% respectively, overall energy and exergy efficiencies are 38.7% and 21.3% respectively. Hydrogen production rates are 0.00003800 kg/s which is a proof that these wells have positive potential usage.

Keywords: solar; geothermal; dual flash; energy; exergy; hydrogen; cooling; power.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEX.2019.100369

International Journal of Exergy, 2019 Vol.29 No.2/3/4, pp.318 - 349

Received: 15 Nov 2018
Accepted: 23 Mar 2019
Published online: 27 Jun 2019 *

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