ABSTRACT The development of renewable energy and the recovery of data‐center waste heat are important pathways toward green data centers. To address the limited integration of geothermal energy with low‐grade data‐center waste heat in existing cooling‐ or power‐oriented systems, this study proposes a novel combined cooling and power (CCP) system featuring a strongly coupled organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and absorption refrigeration cycle (ARC). In the proposed configuration, geothermal water is cascade‐utilized to drive the ORC evaporator and the ARC generator, while data‐center waste heat, together with the heat rejected from the absorption side, is further recovered for low‐temperature preheating of the ORC working fluid. The effects of working‐fluid selection and key design parameters on thermodynamic and economic performance are investigated, followed by multi‐objective optimization, exergy‐loss analysis, benchmark comparison, and economic sensitivity analysis. Results show that R245fa provides the best thermodynamic performance in the parametric study, while R601a achieves the most favorable trade‐off within the present thermo‐economic framework. Under the optimal operating condition, the system reaches an exergy efficiency of 40. 34%, an annual cost of 130. 29 k/year, and a static payback period of 4. 62 years. Compared with a simplified reference system, the proposed integrated configuration increases the net power output from 274. 31 to 286. 97 kW and improves the exergy efficiency from 38. 69% to 40. 34% with nearly unchanged cooling capacity. In addition, simplified part‐load analysis indicates stable power output under moderate waste‐heat fluctuation, while economic sensitivity analysis shows that electricity price and annual operating hours are the dominant factors affecting economic viability.
Chen et al. (Mon,) studied this question.