Development of collector integrated sorption modules for solar heating and cooling: Performance simulation

Solar thermal cooling has difficulty to emerge as an economically competitive solution for small systems mainly due to high investment cost and system complexity [1]. Therefore developments of principally new system solutions are needed. This paper describes such a solution with sorption modules directly integrated into a solar thermal collector. The focus of the work has been to find key parameters influencing the module and the system efficiency. A validated model of a sorption collector has been implemented into a simplified system deck providing cooling, heating and domestic hot water to static loads in the system modelling environment TRNSYS [2]. Simulations have been conducted for different boundary conditions and at two locations with different climatic conditions. Thermal losses from the collector as well as internal thermal losses inside the collector were found to be the most important parameters influencing efficiency. The system simulations gave overall thermal cooling efficiencies in the range of 0.12-0.27 and electrical cooling efficiencies in the range of 15-45 depending on collector technology, climate and control strategy.