Integration of Reverse Osmosis Desalination With Cold-Heat-Power Production in the Tertiary Sector

A preliminary design of a polygeneration system, conceived for a four-star hotel located on the Mediterranean coast, is presented in this paper. For this system, a single fuel is used to produce cold, heat, power and water from an internal combustion engine integrated and optimized with heaters, absorption units and a reverse osmosis desalination plant. The proposed system is the result of minimizing a multiobjective function of energy (cold, heat and power) and water consumption, in order to reach a more efficient and sustainable management of the installation. The hotel covers its internal demand of energy and water and reaches important overall energy efficiency improvements thanks to the integration of all the systems. An economic analysis has also been performed. The overall system has been modeled by means of data provided by manufacturers and also by means of efficiency curves available in the literature.