Diurnal performance investigation of solar integrated ejector-based Combined Cooling, Heating, and Power (CCHP) system for Indian climate

The increasing global energy demand, driven by population growth and geographical challenges to deliver grid power, necessitates a shift from traditional energy systems to renewable energy-based poly-generation systems to reduce fossil fuel consumption. Among many, a solar-integrated trigeneration system is the most emerging technology to provide combined cooling, heating, and power (CCHP) to address environmental concerns and enhance solar energy utilization. Therefore, a novel solar integrated ejector-based organic Rankine cycle (SEORC) is proposed for CCHP application and corresponding year-round dynamic analysis with the change of solar irradiation is conducted across five distinct climatic zones of India like arid, semi-arid, tropical wet and dry, tropical wet, and hilly regions. In the SEORC, the primary refrigerant flow is extracted in the first stage of ORC turbine expansion to explore the system's performance at sub-zero evaporator temperatures. The results show that the system's performance varies seasonally, with summer yielding optimal results. The semi-arid climate demonstrates the highest overall system efficiency of 28.04 %. In contrast, the tropical wet climate achieves the highest solar fraction of 1.89, power output of 21.55 kW, and heating capacity of 25.93 kW with a heat input of 158 kW, and 19.44 kW highest cooling capacity in the hilly environment. The results demonstrate that the SEORC system effectively delivers cooling for possible building thermal management. Notably, a tropical wet climate achieves the highest efficiency of 19.52 % and a solar fraction of 45 %. PTC and boiler are the primary sources of exergy destruction, contributing 60.05 % and 12.46 %.