https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-025-06808-w
Regular Article
Sustainability assessment of hybrid solar gas turbine from the perspective of emergy—two scenarios
Center of Computational Energy, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hakim Sabzevari University, Sabzevar, Iran
a mahdi.deymi@gmail.com, m.deimi@hsu.ac.ir
Received:
3
August
2024
Accepted:
28
August
2025
Published online:
9
September
2025
Today, researchers are looking to change global energy consumption from fossil fuels to innovative and cost-effective technologies. Also, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions have recently been noticed by researchers, and for this reason, renewable energy sources have become very important. This study proposes a hybrid system based on a solar gas turbine (in two scenarios) that simultaneously uses air pre-heating, input air to the compressor, and waste heat recovery; in addition to increasing efficiency, it has been tried to provide a green system by evaluating its environmental and economic sustainability from a comprehensive perspective. The present research has been evaluated for sustainability by using the emergy analysis of two systems, the analysis of inputs, including free environmental resources, purchased, renewable, and non-renewable resources from the perspective of emergy indicators. The results of the study showed that the total emergy consumption in the primary and secondary scenarios is equal to 2.40 E + 19 and 2 E + 19 solar emjoule, respectively. The environmental emergy sustainable index (ESI) in the primary and secondary scenarios was obtained as 2.5 and 3.01, respectively, and these results indicate that both scenarios are stable, with the difference that the secondary scenario moves toward more stability. The environmental load ratio (ELR) index showed that the secondary scenario has relatively low pressure on the environment compared to the primary scenario. The emergy yield ratio (EYR) index was obtained almost the same in both proposed scenarios, which shows that both scenarios are equally efficient in using environmental resources. The emergy self-supporting ratio (ESR) index value in the first and second scenario is 2.497 and 2.998, respectively. In general, for emergy analysis and considering each of the energy production parameters, and from the economic and environmental effects and comparing the indicators in each of the two scenarios, it was concluded that the secondary scenario is a suitable system for energy supply and it has higher stability.
Copyright comment Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
