TaesLab: An advanced software tool for circular thermoeconomics

Abstract

Circular thermoeconomics encompasses the physical principles of the circular economy (strictly spiral economy), industrial symbiosis, and second law costing and diagnosis of complex energy systems. This article describes a new software tool for circular thermoeconomics distributed as a MATLAB package. The software implements the algorithms described in the latest revisions of the exergy cost theory. In addition to production cost calculation and diagnostics functions, TaesLab incorporates new ones for determining energy savings due to waste recovery and process integration. The production structure model makes it possible to analyse different plant configurations, integrating other processes for waste recovery or energy storage. For demonstration purposes, the article presents a short example of a cogeneration plant with waste recovery and describes its data model and the functionality of this software tool.