Performance, economic and environmental assessment of solar cooling systems under various climates

Solar cooling systems are gaining more attention as eco-friendly cooling technology, which could be an alternative to the conventional vapor compression cooling one to meet the growing demand of space cooling. This paper proposes the investigation of different solar cooling systems, namely: solar absorption, solar adsorption, photovoltaic and photovoltaic thermal cooling systems on the basis of performance, economic and environmental aspects. The main objective is to identify the most favorable system depending on climate condition and solar fraction. Moreover, a numerical simulation is performed on EnergyPlus software to determine the cooling loads of a typical office building for air-conditioning purpose. Performance, economic and environmental analyses are carried out in terms of key indicators, such as solar coefficient of performance (SCOP), levelized cost of cooling (LCOC), discounted payback period (DPP), and life cycle climate performance (LCCP). The results showed that the increase of solar fraction impacts positively the economic and environmental indicators, since this could reduce the LCOC, DPP and LCCP values. Besides, the photovoltaic thermal cooling system exhibits the better performance in all climate conditions with SCOP values ranging from 36% to 52%, depending on climate. Furthermore, the economic findings revealed that the lowest values of LCOC are acquired by using photovoltaic cooling system; varying within the range of 0.056-0.25 euro/kWhc, depending on climate. While the lowest DPP values are observed in regions with high solar irradiation using photovoltaic cooling system. Moreover, solar adsorption cooling system was found to be the most environmentally-friendly since it exhibits the lowest LCCP value. In addition, it was found that the increase of ambient temperature and solar radiation results in higher SCOP and lower LCOC and DPP values, especially for solar absorption and solar adsorption cooling systems. The current work is expected to serve as a reference for engineers and designers to select the suitable solar cooling system to be installed according to the target location and solar fraction.

Automated summary

This study investigates different solar cooling systems in terms of performance, economic and environmental aspects, aiming to identify the most suitable system. The results show that photovoltaic thermal cooling system has the best performance in all climate conditions, photovoltaic cooling system has the lowest cost, and solar adsorption cooling system is the most environmentally friendly.