Trial results of domestic CHP & thermally driven cooling

Taking into consideration residential and officebuilding application, the cogenerationdeployment is economically, energetically andenvironmentally affected by the opportunity torecover waste heat energy during summerseason with its development into trigeneration.The availability of small Thermally DrivenCooling (TDC) systems with cooling capacitiesof 30 kW down to a few kW and the increasingdemand of cooling energy generally satisfied byelectrically-driven units (PolySMART The marketpotential of micro-CHCP - Tecnical report, 2008)have been the driving forces to an increasinginterest for microtrigeneration systems fuelled bynatural gas, especially in the South of Europe. Inthis paper, a promising application ofpolygeneration referred to a mild climaticconditions, such those existing in South Italy, isreported. At the Built Environment ControlLaboratory of Seconda Università di Napoli, asystem based on gas fuelled internalcombustion engine coupled with an Air CooledWater Chiller, (ACWC) and a Thermochemicalabsorption system (TCA) has been set-up inorder to investigate the on-site performances ofmicropolygeneration under real operatingconditions in an office; this paper deals with thedescription of experimental set-up and theresults of first trials. The investigation isperformed by the Energetic, Economic andEnvironmental approach (3-E analysis), bywhich the performances of system proposed(i.e. the Alternative System) have beencompared to those of conventional energysystem.