A new absorption–compression hybrid refrigeration system is developed to utilize the sensible heat of flue gas more efficiently.The high-temperature sensible heat of flue gas (350.0–204.8 C) is used to generate high-temperature NH3–H2O vapor for power generation, and low-temperature heat (204.8–118 ?C) is recovered by strong solution for cooling generation. Compared with the conventional NH3–H2O ARS, the temperature difference in the flue gas heat exchangers of the hybrid system is decreased by 110 ?C. The cascade use of the sensible heat of flue gas dramatically enhances system performance. The COP of the proposed system is 0.71 which is 41.9% higher than that of the conventional NH3–H2O ARS. The effects of flue gas and cooling water temperatures on thermodynamic performance are also investigated. The COP of the hybrid system increases from 0.67 to 0.71 when gas temperature rises from 300 ?C to 350 ?C. The COP of the hybrid system increases from 0.71 to 1.04 as cooling water temperature decreases from 30 ?C to 10 ?C. The discussion of technological considerations shows that there is no serious technical obstacle when the hybrid system is implemented in the practical applications. This study provides a new efficient way of producing cooling energy using waste heat.