Energy and Buildings 51 (2012) 143–152 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Energy and Buildings j ourna l ho me p age: www.elsevier.com/locate/enbuild Integrated assessment of combined cooling heating and power systems under different design and management options for residential buildings in Shanghai Qunyin Gu a,b,∗ , Hongbo Ren c , Weijun Gao b , Jianxing Ren d a Institute of Electric Power and Automation Engineering, Shanghai University of Electric Power, 200090 Shanghai, China b Faculty of Environmental Engineering, The University of Kitakyushu, 808-0135 Kitakyushu, Japan c Ritsumeikan Global Innovation Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University, 603-8577 Kyoto, Japan d Institute of Energy and Environment Engineering, Shanghai University of Electric Power, 200090 Shanghai, China a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 5 October 2011 Received in revised form 27 March 2012 Accepted 25 April 2012 Keywords: Integrated assessment Combined cooling heating and power (CCHP) Residential building Heat tracking (HT) Electricity tracking (ET) Energy island (EI) a b s t r a c t As a well-known technique for rational use of energy, the combined cooling, heating and power (CCHP) system is paid more and more attention in building energy conservation activities. In this paper, the performances of typical CCHP systems are investigated for a high-rise residential building, which is experiencing rapid expansion in China. Based on the building’s energy consumption, four types of CCHP technologies have been assumed following three design and management modes, namely, heat tracking mode, electricity tracking mode and energy island mode. In order to have a comprehensive understanding of the performance of the assumed CCHP systems, besides the separated energy, economic and envi- ronmental assessments, an integrated assessment framework is proposed. According to the simulation results, gas engine and fuel cell based CCHP systems are feasible options from the energy and environ- mental viewpoints, but at the cost of poor economic performance. From an integrated viewpoint, the gas engine system is the most attractive option if economic performance is taken into account; otherwise the fuel cell system is the best choice. In addition, the selection of proper design and management mode is of vital importance for the adoption of the CCHP system. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In recent years, distributed energy resource (DER) has been receiving increasing attention as a good option for future energy systems with respect to sustainable development and low-carbon society development [e.g. [1,2]]. Usually, DER means small scale electric generation units located at or near the end-users, and can be divided into two major sections from the technical points of view. The first section is on-site renewable energy sources, includ- ing photovoltaic, biomass energy, small-scale wind and water turbine generators, and so on. The second major area of DER is the combined cooling, heating and power (CCHP) systems using prime mover technologies including gas engines, micro-turbines, steam turbines, Stirling engines and fuel cells [3]. From the long- term viewpoint, the utilization of renewable energy should be a final solution for sustainable development and low-carbon soci- ety. However, most of the current renewable energy technologies, e.g. solar, wind energy, etc., have low energy utilization efficiency ∗ Corresponding author at: Institute of Electric Power and Automation Engineer- ing, Shanghai University of Electric Power, 200090 Shanghai, China. Tel.: +86 21 3530 3155; fax: +86 21 3530 3155. E-mail address: feifan25@gmail.com (Q. Gu). and high expense, and thus cannot compete with conventional fos- sil fuels with respect to the economic performance. On the other hand, from the short-term viewpoint, as an efficient approach to generate electrical and thermal energy from a single fuel source, the CCHP plant is considered to be one of the feasible and effec- tive solutions. The CCHP system recovers the waste heat from the electricity generating process that would otherwise be discarded into the environment. The heat recovered is used to satisfy the thermal demand (cooling, heating, or hot water needs) of an end- user. By recycling the waste heat, the CCHP system can achieve a primary energy efficiency of 60–90%, a dramatic improvement over the average 35% efficiency of conventional fossil fuel based power plants. Higher efficiencies can also contribute to the reduc- tion of air emissions including SO 2 which is the main component of local air pollutions, and CO 2 which is the main threat to the global environment. Since its first emergence, the CCHP system has spread with varying success to many developed countries, and has played an important role in promoting energy efficiency in these countries. For example, in Japan, the CCHP system has been developed rapidly during the last 20 years. The total generation capacity had increased from 200 kW in 1986 to 9440 MW as of March 2010. The annual capacity of CCHP installed is increasing by a constant 350–400 MW every year since 1986 [4]. In addition, the overall electricity 0378-7788/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2012.04.023