Open AccessA Micro-trigeneration Geothermal Plant for a Smart Energy Community: The Case Study of a Residential District in Ischia
Author(s) -
Francesca Ceglia,
Elisa Marrasso,
Carlo Roselli,
Maurizio Sasso
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
iop conference series. earth and environmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1755-1307
pISSN - 1755-1315
DOI - 10.1088/1755-1315/690/1/012051
Subject(s) - renewable energy , geothermal gradient , environmental science , geothermal energy , electricity , electric power , environmental engineering , geothermal power , sustainability , renewable heat , civil engineering , engineering , heat pump , power (physics) , heat exchanger , electrical engineering , mechanical engineering , geology , ecology , physics , quantum mechanics , hybrid heat , geophysics , biology
Improvements for islands sustainability subjected to strong anthropogenic pressures could be obtained by innovative solutions for energy supply by using local energy renewable sources. This paper analyses the possible benefits of a geothermal energy community, consisting of residential users, located in Ischia, an island of Naples in South of Italy. The proposed system is mainly based on an Organic Rankine Cycle plant interacting with a medium temperature geothermal source. This system satisfies both community’s pure electric load and electricity requests of the electric-driven heat pumps for space conditioning and domestic hot water demands. The entire system and residential users were modelled and dynamically simulated by considering hourly electric, thermal/cooling and domestic hot water loads variation during three reference days for winter, summer and intermediate season. The proposed plant was compared to a traditional system in which the electricity to meet the total community’s electric loads, is taken from the national power grid. The results highlight that the use of proposed system instead of traditional one allows to avoid 29.9 tons per year of CO 2 emissions. Furthermore, this proposed system ensures the island-operation of community exploiting local renewable energy source and improving the energy independency.