Design Optimization Using Exergoeconomics

Exergoeconomics, this common branch of mechanical and chemical engineering, represents a unique combination of an exergy analysis and a cost analysis, to provide the designer or the operator of an energy-conversion plant with information not available through conventional energy, exergy or cost analyses but crucial to the design and operation of a cost-effective plant. Exergoeconomics may be defined as an exergy-aided cost-reduction method. In addition, exergoeconomics is a very powerful tool for understanding the interconnections between thermodynamics and economics, and, thus, the behavior of an energy conversion plant from the cost viewpoint [1].