Design and optimization of an energy hub based on combined cycle power plant to improve economic and exergy objectives

This paper uses the energy hub concept to meet the water, heat and electricity demand of a power plant in the Qeshm island in south of Iran. Given the power plant’s high potential for waste heat recovery and some scenarios were considered using the hub energy concept based on energy, exergy, environmental and economic analyzes in terms of meeting the demands of the hub and purchasing/selling energy carriers including electricity, heating, freshwater as well as its production using gas turbine, steam turbine, boiler, Reverse Osmosis (RO) and Multi-Effect Desalination (MED) system. Energy hubs are optimized based on the Genetic Algorithm (GA) with the goal of supplying demand, as well as reducing costs and pollutants and increasing the exergy efficiency which ultimately will be selected using the concept of an energy hub at its optimal capacity. By comparing the two energy supplying systems of the current case study and optimal energy hub, results showed that the Total Annual Cost (TAC) level decreased by about 257904 $/year and exergy efficiency increased by 34.31%. CO2 emission will also decrease by about 471 tons/year.