Cogeneration of cooling energy and fresh water

A design simulation of the cogeneration system allowed to chose the best HD unit configuration, while a TRNSYS off-design simulation revealed the main design variables on which to focus the optimization. The optimization study on the design variables was performed by GenOpt, a generic optimization program which minimizes an objective function with respect to multiple variables. This study has been carried out on different objective functions and reveals that maximizing the production of cooling energy means damaging the fresh water production. A compromise solution has been chosen to balance the contrast between cooling energy and fresh water production.