Investigation of a new integrated energy system with thermochemical hydrogen production cycle and desalination

This study presents design, development and analysis of a novel integrated energy system based on renewable geothermal energy source with a Copper Chlorine (CuCl) thermochemical cycle for hydrogen production production and a multistage desalination subsystem for freshwater production. In the proposed system, five useful outputs are effectively generated, such as heat for space heating, electricity, freshwater, hot water and hydrogen. CuCl thermochemical cycle is used for hydrogen production. The need for achieving high-temperature levels for the thermochemical cycle is met by a CuCl cascaded heat pump configuration in the system. The presented system is further analyzed and assessed thermodynamically through energy and exergy approaches. A case study is conducted for the city of Vancouver, Canada. Some parametric studies are also performed to observe the effects of different ambient and working conditions for the overall system and subsystems. According to conducted thermodynamic analysis, 42.06% energy and 49.65% exergy efficiencies are obtained for the overall system. The total exergy destruction rate for the overall system components is determined to be 46.56 MW. In the CuClMercury cascaded heat pump configuration, the coefficient of performance values are obtained as 1.557 for energy and 1.128 for exergy.