Thermo-economic and environmental optimization using PSO of solar organic Rankine cycle with flat plate solar collector

The use of solar energy is considered a potential strategy for the production of electrical energy through thermal heat sources. This article portrays a study framed to be energetic, economic, and environmental fields. This study was carried out in two thermal configurations: the Regenerative Rankine Cycle (RORC) and the Simple Organic Rankine Cycle (SORC), which use solar energy to supply electrical power to a building. The thermodynamic and economic models were proposed for each subsystem of the thermal process, allowing hourly simulations to know the economic indicators such as the payback period (PBP), the levelized cost of energy (LCOE), the specific investment cost (SIC), and the initial investment cost (C_Inv). The effect of operational variables such as the pressure ratio (rp), the evaporator pinch point temperature (Ap), the condensation pinch point temperature (Tcond), and the solar collector area (Ac) on the Relative Annual Benefit (RAB) were studied. Finally, the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm was implemented to optimize the economic indicators and the environmental impact of the thermal configurations. Results showed that the RORC configuration presented a better performance in terms of generation, purchase, and hourly sale of energy. However, in terms of RAB, the SORC (39,833 USD/year) showed better results in contrast to the RORC (39,604 USD/year) for an evaporator pinch point temperature of 35 °C. Finally, the application of the PSO optimization algorithm allowed the reduction of the LCOE (11.64%), SIC (11.67%), and PBP (11.81%) thermo-economic indicators from the base condition for the SORC, and the reductions obtained in the RORC were LCOE (18.11%), SIC (10.67%), and PBP (11.11%). However, the decrease in environmental Impact for both systems was less than 1% as a consequence of the high contribution of thermal oil in the construction phase of the system.