3 A Balance-Space-Based Operation Strategy for CCHP Systems

Performance and efficiencies of CCHP systems mainly depend on system structures, operation strategies, and choices of facility capacity. In [1, 2], the authors proposed a new CCHP system structure different from the conventional one, whose cooling load all lands on the absorption chiller. The new structure adopts a combination of absorption and electric chillers. An electric chiller has a high COP of around 3, which leads to a high cooling efficiency. However, taking the high rates of the electricity into account, an operation strategy needs to be designed to determine the optimal effort of the electric chiller. A parameter called electric cooling to cool load ratio is the one to determine the effort. In the literature, this ratio is chosen to be fixed. In contrast, in this chapter, the ratio is optimized according to the variant energy consumption in every hour and the energy rates.