Abstract
Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) is a power generation method that utilizes the temperature difference between the warm surface water and cold deep water of the ocean. Due to its low efficiency, two popular renewable energy heat sources namely flat plate solar collectors and wind turbine are incorporated with the OTEC system. The OTEC combined with collectors is employed to operate a trilateral cycle (TLC), while the waste heat recovery system from the wind turbine is used to drive an absorption power cycle (APC). The desired power is produced in the wind turbine and the output electricity of TLC and APC is transmitted to a reverse osmosis desalination unit and alkaline electrolyzer for freshwater and hydrogen production. Energy, exergy, and exergoeconomic studies are done on the proposed system through parametric study and design optimization. In the sensitivity study part, the effects of hot seawater temperature, cold seawater temperate, solar radiation intensity, solar collector area, and average wind speed are examined on the output parameters. In the optimization, the exergy efficiency and total cost rates are obtained as 30.84 % and 711.35 $/h. In this case, the configuration has outputs of 2726 kW power, 0.208 kg/h hydrogen, and 3.78 kg/s freshwaters. With an exergy efficiency of 30.48 % and a unit cost of tri-generation at $21.92/GJ, the comparison with a previous study highlights the benefits of incorporating wind energy into the solar-ocean system and adopting a tri-generation configuration, resulting in improved efficiency and reduced cost.