Ecological COP and Availability Loss

[jamesk]

Can anyone please help by defining the two related terms in the title:
'Ecological Coefficient Of Performance' and 'Availability Loss'

From the paper: 'Performance optimization of irreversible refrigerators based on a new thermo-ecological criterion':

"Performance conditions for the ECOP and COP criteria are the same yet they have different meanings. The COP gives information about the necessary power consumption in order to produce a certain cooling load while the ECOP gives information about the entropy generation, i.e. the loss rate of availability."

What exactly does 'Ecological' COP mean and what is the 'Availability Loss' ?

Thanks ahead

[Brian_UK]

Try reading this, you may regret it....
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...49784469,d.ZGU

[jamesk]

That looks very useful, cheers Brian. I have read one paper on it but it didn't even explain the term and not easy to get the exact meaning but i will read through that as well.

[Doug30293]

James;;

Availability, in thermodynamics jargon, refers to the ease by which energy sources may be utilized. It has been many years since I did those horrible homework assignments so I cannot remember even the simplest of equations.

Here is the example I remember: The oceans are the world's largest thermal source. The availability of this energy is low because the effort to extract it outweighs it's value. A hot spring would have high availability if you need one and it happens to be nearby.

ECOP and availability loss are terms I am either unfamiliar with or did my best to forget. Availability was covered in the last week of a particularly difficult class. My brain was already full and we were told availability would not be addressed on the final exams.

[jamesk]

Thanks for your knowledge Doug, hope I didn't evoke too many painful memories . I will remember that example as well. I think ECOP is quite a new term from what I can gather, probably why it's hard to find anything on it for me. cheers