Trigeneration描述了使用吸收式制冷的热电联产系统，该系统消耗一种燃料来提供三种能源——电、热和冷。冷发电系统描述了一种三联产系统，该系统仅通过吸收和机械压缩循环产生冷却，一年中任何时候都不会浪费热量。这意味着三联产系统只处理基本负荷，功率、加热和冷却峰值由传统技术处理。在实践中，三联产循环的吸收具有与使用电网电力的标准机械压缩循环相似的热力学效率。 然而，当天然气价格便宜或国家电网电力生产不足/效率低和/或价格昂贵时，三联产系统可能非常有吸引力。三联产系统需要设计师、安装人员、维护人员和操作员进行更高的投资和专业知识。由于其高功率和冷却需求，数据中心似乎是三联产系统的理想选择。为了具有竞争力，年度基本负荷应使用吸收系统，可变冷负荷应使用机械压缩系统。 与其他应用类似，数据中心三联产的市场渗透率较低。本文提供了吸收式制冷的新服务，并讨论了其在数据中心的潜在应用。引文:伊利诺伊州芝加哥ASHRAE交易——第121卷第1部分

Trigeneration describes cogeneration systems that consume a fuel to deliver three energy supplies -- electricity, heating, and cooling -- using absorption refrigeration. Cold generation systems describe a trigeneration system that only generates cooling using absorption and mechanical compression cycles, and where there is no heat wasted at any time during the year. This means that the trigeneration systems only deal with base loads, with peaks of power, heating, and cooling dealt with by traditional technologies. In practice, absorption with trigeneration cycles has a similar thermodynamic efficiency to standard mechanical compression cycles using grid electricity. Nevertheless, trigeneration systems can be quite attractive when natural gas is cheap or the national grid electric production is insufficient/inefficient and/or expensive. Trigeneration systems require a higher investment and specialist knowledge of designers, installers, maintainers, and operators. Data centers would appear to be ideal candidates for trigeneration systems due to their high power and cooling demands. To be competitive, absorption systems should be used for the annual base load with mechanical compression systems used for the variable cooling load. Similar to other applications, themarket penetration of trigeneration for data centers has been low.This paper providesanoverviewof absorption refrigeration and discusses its potential application for data centers.