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Energy and Economic Investigation of a Biodiesel-Fired Engine for Micro-Scale Cogeneration
oleh: Diego Perrone, Angelo Algieri, Pietropaolo Morrone, Teresa Castiglione
Format: | Article |
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Diterbitkan: | MDPI AG 2021-01-01 |
Deskripsi
The work aims at investigating the techno-economic performance of a biodiesel micro combined heat and power (CHP) system for residential applications. The CHP unit is based on a direct-injection compression ignition engine providing 6.7 kW<sub>el</sub> and 11.3 kW<sub>th</sub>. A 0D model is developed and validated to characterise the behaviour of the biodiesel-fired engine at full and partial load in terms of efficiency, fuel consumption, and emissions. Furthermore, non-dimensional polynomial correlations are proposed to foresee the performance of biodiesel-fuelled engines for micro-CHP applications at partial loads. Afterwards, the CHP system is adopted to satisfy the electric and thermal demand of domestic users in Southern Italy. To this purpose, a parametric analysis is performed considering a different number of apartments and operating strategies (electric-driven and thermal-driven). A bi-variable optimisation based on the primary energy saving (<i>PES</i>) index and payback period (<i>PBT</i>) permits selecting the thermal-driven strategy and five apartments as the most suitable solution. The optimal <i>PBT</i> and <i>PES</i> are equal to 5.3 years and 22.4%, respectively. The corresponding annual thermal self-consumption reaches 81.3% of the domestic request, and the thermal surplus is lower than 8%. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is adopted to define the influence of the costs of energy vectors and a cogeneration unit on the economic feasibility of the biodiesel CHP system. The analysis highlights that the investigated apparatus represents an attractive option to satisfy the energy requests in micro-scale applications, providing valuable energy and economic advantages compared to traditional energy production.