AUTOMATED EXERGOECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF A HIGH-TEMPERATURE HEAT PUMP

Kurzfassung

The transition to sustainable industrial processes requires innovative energy systems that balance efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and environmental impact. High-temperature heat pumps (HTHPs) have emerged as a key technology for industrial process heat decarbonization, yet their optimization demands comprehensive performance evaluation. This paper presents a detailed exergoeconomic analysis of a cascade HTHP system designed for industrial steam generation, following the Specific Exergy Costing (SPECO) approach. The analysis is realized with ExerPy, an advanced automated tool that interfaces with commercial simulation platforms, automating exergy and cost calculations and ensuring precision and consistency. The cascade configuration achieves an overall COP of 2.09. While the exergy analysis identifies expansion valves as the primary sources of irreversibilities (44% of total exergy destruction), the exergoeconomic assessment reveals the air heat exchanger as the primary optimization target due to its substantial capital cost contribution despite lower thermodynamic losses. This highlights how purely thermodynamic evaluations can lead to suboptimal design decisions when economic factors are neglected. The study quantifies key metrics such as exergetic efficiencies, irreversibilities, and cost rates within the system, and suggests different optimization strategies based on exergoeconomic indicators. By integrating thermodynamic insights with economic evaluations, this work demonstrates the practical application of exergy-based analyses to industrial energy systems and supports the development of sustainable thermal energy solutions for industrial decarbonization.