Design and analysis of a floating photovoltaic based integrated energy system with ammonia production
Sibel Uygun Batgi, İbrahim Dinçer
Abstract
This article presents the development, analysis, and assessment of the integrated solar system ultimately for ammonia production process, in addition to other useful commodities namely power and heat, which follows a sustainable path in which the electrical power required in the ammonia production system is generated by floating photovoltaic (FPV) panels placed on a dam. The system consists of several interconnected subsystems, including a proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer, a cryogenic air separation unit (CASU), and an ammonia synthesis unit. The system advisor model (SAM) is used to simulate the FPV panels in the theoretically built clean ammonia manufacturing plant. In the proposed study, it is planned that the terrestrial parts can be used as agricultural land by placing FPV panels on the dam for environmentally friendly and sustainable ammonia production, while also preventing water evaporation in the dam. This research paper with a specific case study for the Catalan Dam offers a new approach for environmentally friendly and sustainable ammonia production using FPV panels placed on the dams. Here, the FPV panels generate an annual electrical output of 88.65 GWh. The ammonia production system is simulated using the Aspen Plus V14. Several parametric studies are performed on the designed system to observe how the system performance is affected by changing the specific operating conditions and state properties. This study aims to exploit waste heat released by heat exchangers at various places for heat recovery as a beneficial output in residential, greenhouse, and food drying facilities. In this study, it is aimed to use the waste heat released from heat exchangers as useful output in domestic, greenhouse and food drying factories. In the thermodynamic analyses of the proposed system, the overall energy and exergy efficiencies are found to be 24.14 % and 26.09 %, respectively. In the economic analysis of the ammonia production system, the total capital cost is found to be 12,862,600 USD. As a result of the uncertainty analysis, it is concluded that the uncertainty p90 value of 0.96 where about 90 % of the data points with an uncertainty score of 0.96 are equal to or less than this value which clearly shows a high level of confidence.