Residential Micro Tri-Generation System Based on Thermo Chemical Accumulator (TCA)

Cooling production has application in a considerable number of fields in human life, such as; food processing, air conditioning, pharmaceuticals etc. Conventional refrigeration systems driven by vapor compression cycle, in general contribute significantly in an opposite way of sustainable development due to their association with huge electricity consumption. Co-generation as the name implies is simultaneous production of heat and electricity which is more efficient than producing each commodity separately. During summer however, there is little demand for heating or hot water; so most of the heat produced by co-generation gets wasted to environment. Tri-generation, as the name implies, refers to the production of three commodities: electricity, heating and chilled water. Chilled water can be achieved by incorporating a heat activated cooling system into a co-generation system that utilizes the waste heat from the co-generation unit. Produced chilled water can be used for air-conditioning application. Vapor absorption cycles namely: adsorption, absorption and thermo chemical accumulator (TCA) are the three refrigeration cycles that produce cooling effect using waste heat recovery. This paper describes about the preliminary works related to the development of residential tri-generation system based on LiCl-H2O based TCA. For experimental work, an Archetype Sustainable House (ASH) was selected which is located at Kortright center for Toronto and Regional Conservation Authority (TRCA) in Vaughan, Ontario. The house is equipped with more than 300 sensors through a data acquisition system capable of recording data every 5 seconds. For transient simulation, TRNSYS software has been used. A proposed detailed schematic diagram of tri-generation system has also been included in this paper.