Calculation of solar gains for solar heating and cooling using the bin-method

When rating the performance of a solar cooling system a standardized method is required to calculate seasonal performance figures from measurements at test conditions. A method commonly used for electrical chillers is the so called bin method which utilizes the reference climate as a basic table of temperature and their frequency distribution. When applying this method for solar cooling an additional column is necessary to define the radiation profile of the reference weather. This paper defines a standard radiation profile and describes the applicability of the bin method for solar cooling. It turns out that a simplified reference weather profile creates an uncertainty below 1% onto the calculation of heat gain. The focus in this paper is on solar cooling, however this method may also be used to calculate the gain of solar heating and DHW.