Optimal Design of Trigeneration and District Energy in the Presence of Energy Storage

The paper is aimed at exploring the opportunities given by the exploitation of different technologies for energy storage in the development of a trigeneration (trigen) and district energy project. In particular, the paper will be devoted to find the best cooling energy storage solution for the on-going San Paolo Power Park project in the City of Bari, Italy. The Power Park is a project that aims at producing energy and energy services through an optimal mix of renewables, CHP/DHC, hydrogen and other forms of energy. The energy produced in the central plant will be distributed in a suburban degraded area devoted to social housing, but also close to some significant energy users (airport, hospital and other major facilities). The optimization problem is solved by means of a two-step multiperiod algorithm. Test results are presented.