A newly developed solar-based cogeneration system with energy storage and heat recovery for sustainable data centers: Energy and exergy analyses

There is a strong need and hence specific challenges attached to this for data centers to bring holistic energy solutions for better operation, control and management in a more cost-effective, efficient and environmentally benign manner. The current study develops and investigates a solar-based novel integrated system to generate electricity and hence provide cooling in a sustainable way. The proposed system includes a parabolic trough-type concentrated solar plant with a Rankine cycle, bifacial photovoltaic plant, proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell, PEM electrolyzer, Cu-Cl thermochemical hydrogen production cycle, Li-Br absorption refrigeration cycle. In order to prevent solar intermittency, thermal and chemical-based energy storage systems are integrated as molten salt cold and hot thermal energy storage tanks and hydrogen-based energy storage systems. The heat is recovered by the Rankine cycle and the Li-Br absorption refrigeration cycle in order to generate electricity and to provide cooling. The overall system is analyzed with thermodynamic approaches from the energy and exergy points of view. For further, the overall system is analyzed with the hourly ambient data in a time-dependent analysis for a data center in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. For the average ambient conditions, the energy and exergy efficiencies of the overall integrated system calculated as 35.98% and 31.24%, respectively. At least 10% of the overall energy efficiency is exceeded during a total of 8091 h of the year, whereas the overall exergy efficiency is exceeded 10% during the 7726 h in a year. Further to note that there are challenges for such systems to bring a holistic solution.