4E analysis and optimization of a biomass-fired waste-to-energy plant integrated with a compressed air energy storage system for the multi-generation purpose

A novel multi-generation system is introduced based on the combination of biomass gasifier-fired steam Rankine cycle (SRC) and compressed air energy storage (CAES) system. The output power of SRC feeds the compressor and electric heater of the CAES system. A domestic hot water heat exchanger and an absorption chiller are used to waste heat utilization of gasifier-SRC and a trilateral cycle (TLC) is utilized to waste energy recovery of the CAES system. Then, the output power of TLC is sent to a proton exchange membrane electrolyzer for the production of hydrogen. Hence, the considered system is converted to a power, heating, cooling, and hydrogen multi-generation system. Energy, exergy, exergy-economic and environmental studies are done on the layout in a base case, parametric analysis, and design optimization. The three-objective optimization results in the exergy round trip efficiency (ERTE), total cost rate, and unit cost of multi-generation of 41.205%, 708.136 $/h, and 17.206 $/GJ. The improvement of ERTE (30.23%) is the most visible one in comparison to the base case outputs.