A refrigeration method reduces compressor energy usage in a hydrocarbon refrigeration system by incorporating a distillation/adsorption cycle. The method and related systems can use waste or other heat sources to replace a portion of the mechanical energy of the compression cycle in a novel process scheme easily adapted to either new or existing refrigeration systems. The present hybrid vapor compression-adsorption cycle combines both the refrigerant and adsorption medium in the compression cycle and separates these components using conventional multi-stage distillation to then separate them for the refrigeration and adsorption cycles.