Experimental investigation of diesel engine driven micro-cogeneration system integrated with thermal energy storage for power and space cooling

In this paper the performance and emission characteristics of thermal energy storage integrated micro-cogeneration system was investigated. This system was developed by connecting the vapor absorption refrigeration (VAR) system and thermal energy storage (TES) system with the exhaust gas pipe of a single-cylinder diesel engine. The vapor absorption refrigeration system has the cooling capacity of 500W. A cabin of 1500 mm length, 1200 mm width and 1500 mm height was fabricated with proper insulation as space for cooling. The cabin temperature drop of 8.6 ℃ was achieved in 45 minutes. The cooling capacity of the VAR system was 302 watts, and the COP of the VAR system was 0.398. The cabin temperature drop decrease with decrease in engine RPM but it was maintain stable (8.6℃) for 25 minutes by using TES. The overall efficiency of the cogeneration system was 1.79% higher than the single generation. Hence, the result showed that the small capacity (5 kW) stationary diesel can be successfully converted into a cogeneration system to produce power and space cooling simultaneously.