Energy and economic performance of solar cooling systems world wide

Solar thermal cooling systems have been installed as pilot projects in most regions of the world, but due to the low number of total installations there is not yet much experience available about system sizing and design. To counter the lack of experience and to evaluate the potential of energy efficient solar cooling systems, a systematic system design study has been carried out covering most climatic regions worldwide. For each technology investigated, an energy optimized control strategy was developed which maximizes the primary energy efficiency. This control strategy was implemented in the simulation environment INSEL and system models were developed for a range of thermal cooling technologies and validated with operating experiences from different plants monitored by the authors. It could be shown that a reduction of nominal chiller power by 30% to 40% or more hardly effects the solar cooling fraction for most climates, but significantly increases the machine operating hours and thus improves the economics. The lower the nominal power of the chiller, the higher the recommended ratio of collector surface area per kW. For a given machine nominal power, solar cooling fractions increase with collector surface area until saturation is reached. Collector surface areas can be as high as 5 m(2) to 10 m(2) per kW with still increasing solar cooling fractions, but acceptable specific collector yield reduction. The economic optimum is reached for less solar cooling fraction and thus lower primary energy savings. Single effect absorption cooling systems easily reach 80% solar cooling fraction for all but very humid climates. Primary energy ratios can be over 3.0, depending on system design and cooling load data. CO2 and primary energy savings of 30 - 79% are achievable. The economic study showed that solar thermal cooling is more viable in hot climates than in moderate European climates. Annual costs strongly depend on the locations. The specific costs per kWh cooling in German locations vary between 0.25 and 1.01 is an element of/kWh, in Spanish locations between 0.13 and 0.30 is an element of/kWh. In hot climates like Jakarta and Riyadh the specific costs are as low as 0.09 to 0.15 is an element of/kWh. Furthermore the maximum investment costs were calculated get a payback time of 10 years. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.