Abstract
With the depletion of fossil fuels and intensification of the environmental burdens, utilization of renewable energies are in the center of attention across the globe. In this paper, a thermodynamic analysis and optimization using MATLAB software is performed for a hybrid solarocean powered system to produce three goods including desalinated water, electricity and gaseous hydrogen for the Kish island in Iran. The system considered here includes a solar power tower system, molten salt thermal energy storage system, steam Rankine cycle, multi-stage flash distillation unit and an electrolyzer as the hydrogen production unit. A detailed energy and exergy analysis have been conducted to assess the exergy destructions, component efficiencies and system hotspots. Moreover, the effect of varying some of the main parameters such as solar irradiation and sea water temperature on the system outputs are considered next. For the baseline scenario of the study, it was calculated that the proposed system produces 123.27 kg/s of sanitary water, 14.02 MW of electricity and 0.185 kg/s of hydrogen. A single objective optimization was also carried out to determine the best system performance. It was concluded that the optimum energy and exergy efficiencies of the integrated system are 30.30% and 40.45%, respectively