Hybrid air conditioning and seawater desalination system assisted by solar energy: thermoeconomic investigation and optimization

Abstract The demand for freshwater has become progressively critical due to population growth and water scarcity. The current work investigates the energetic performance of a hybrid absorption refrigeration and desalination system. A parametric study for the system operating conditions has been performed to get the optimal conditions. Also, economic analysis and a multi-objective optimization method are used with the aim of maximizing the energy utilization factor of the system and minimizing total costs. The specific cost of desalinated water from the multi-objective optimization is calculated as (1.728 Cent/L) with the greatest energy utilization factor of (2.214). It turns out that, the system performs optimum at condensation and generation temperatures of 30 and 65 °C respectively, with resultant COP and GOR of 0.84 and 1.37. Using the optimum conditions, TRNSYS has been used to investigate the transient performance of the system for Marsa–Matrouh City in Egypt. The cooling and freshwater demands are 10 kW and 24 L/h. It was concluded that the input energy required to run the hybrid system decreased by about 65% less than that required for separate systems. With the assistance of solar energy, it became clear that the energy required was 60% less than the hybrid system as well.