Coordinated optimization of centralized and decentralized cooling energy supply

As the growing concern about limited fossil fuel and global environmental problem, combined cooling heating and power (CCHP) system draws more and more attention in the world. In addition, district heating and cooling (DHC) is always considered to be an efficient way to supply heating and cooling energy. In this paper, a CCHP microgrid model composed of distributed energy is proposed, which considers the part-load performance of the generation units, the energy transmission loss of cooling energy supply network, and the fluctuation of cooling energy demand according to user comfortable constraints. Coordinated optimization of centralized and decentralized cooling supply is performed to compare the efficiency of the two options of cooling energy supply: DHC as centralized supply and household air-conditioner (HC) as decentralized supply. The optimization results show that when cooling energy demand is relatively low, HC is a superior way to supply cooling energy. Moreover, this paper also investigates the influence of distributed energy on the generation units of the system.