ABSTRACT
During the past decades, the use of renewable energy systems has been increasing, mainly due to the growing concern about the global warming and environmental pollution. Renewable Energy Sources (RES) are considered to be environmentally friendly and freely available in the nature. The utilization of RES in an efficient way relates to sustainable development. In attaining sustainable development, increasing the energy efficiencies of processes is of great significance. Exergy analysis can be used, in order to evaluate the efficient usage of renewable energy. By determining the sources and magnitude of irreversibilities of each system, exergy analysis is employed, so as to improve its efficiency. In this regard, this chapter reviews exergetic analysis and performance evaluation of a wide range of RES systems. In this context, general relations (i.e., energy, exergy, entropy and exergy balance equations along with exergy efficiency, exergetic improvement potential rate and some thermodynamic parameters, such as fuel depletion ratio, relative irreversibility, productivity lack and exergetic factor) used in the analysis are presented first. The RES system under study, include (a) solar energy systems and (b) wind energy systems.
