Ali Bamshad
This study investigates the integrated techno-economic and environmental performance of a solar-assisted organic Rankine cycle (ORC) power plant coupled with thermal energy storage (TES), multi-effect distillation (MED), and a hybrid H 2 /natural-gas auxiliary boiler. Current research on solar ORC systems typically optimizes either electricity generation or water production, and often neglects the explicit impact of carbon pricing and fuel blending on small-scale hybrid configurations. To address this gap, a detailed phenomenological model of a 5 kWe ORC-TES-MED plant is developed and subjected to four-objective optimization using the NSGA-II evolutionary algorithm. The decision variables include the number of TES tanks and sub-turbines, the fraction of waste heat delivered to the MED, the hydrogen share in the boiler fuel mix, and the ORC evaporation temperature. The objectives are the specific total cost, CO 2 intensity, integrated energetic efficiency, and daily freshwater production. Results show that the best mixed-fuel solutions achieve integrated efficiencies around 10.5-10.7 %, daily water yields exceeding 4 000 kg, and specific costs near 1.0-1.1 $/kWh eq , while reducing CO 2 emissions by up to one order of magnitude compared with purely natural-gas operation. The obtained Pareto fronts highlight that moderate hydrogen fractions combined with high evaporation temperatures provide the most attractive trade-offs between cost, decarbonization, and co-produced freshwater, demonstrating the strong potential of the proposed architecture for remote and water-stressed regions.