Tri-generation and solar power for an efficient and environmental friendly power generation

One of the challenges faced by the smart grid technologies is to encourage the power utilities in order to ensure their power generations are efficient with reduced amount of pollutants emission. An efficient utilization of energy resources can be possible by tri-generation. As compared to conventional power generation, one of the goals of tri-generation is the efficient utilization of available fossil fuel and thereby reducing the pollutants emitted from the thermal plants. The use of tri-generation output along with solar power can increase the possibility of such goal while dispatching a certain amount of power demand. Such a hybrid power generation method is very effective in countries like Saudi Arabia since it is abundant with fossil fuels as well as solar energy resources. A comparative study of tri-generation with conventional generation of electric and thermal power is carried out in this paper. Moreover, an optimum power dispatch with tri-generation along with solar power is analyzed. The environmental benefits obtained while utilizing energy resources through tri-generation is also discussed in this paper. Reduction in pollutants emissions from power plants decreases the undesirable environmental effects and damages; hence tri-generation facilitates environmental friendly power production.