Performance assessment and gained operational experiences of a residential scale solar thermal driven adsorption cooling system installed in hot arid area

In this study, performance assessment of a residential scale size solar thermal driven adsorption cooling system installed in hot arid and dusty area at Upper Egypt, and, in operation since summer 2012 until now is carried out experimentally for four years in operation, moreover, the gained operational experiences are presented. The system performance is expressed in term of the solar collectors' field thermal efficiency, actual chiller chilling capacity, the temperature of cold-water outlet from the chiller, chiller coefficient of performance (COP) and cooling-water temperature outlet from the cooling tower. The system performance results show that the daily solar collector efficiency during the reported period was ranged from about 50% to 78%. While, the average chiller COP was varied from 0.4 to 0.64 in combination with average chilling power ranged from 3.6 to 6.42 kW and average chiller outlet cold water temperature ranged from 19 °C to 12.12 °C correspondence to cooling tower outlet cooling water temperature ranged from 31.4 °C to 23.4 °C, respectively. In the cooling session of 2014, a 50 kW cooling capacity wet cooling tower is integrated into the system, and the measurements show that the outlet water temperature from the cooling tower is about 23.4 °C at ambient air dry bulb temperature of 35.7 °C and wet bulb temperature of about 19 °C. Consequently, under this new heat rejection condition, the chiller average cooling capacity and COP reaches were 6.42 kW and 0.64 with a chilled water temperature of 15 °C. Clearly from the system operation period, the heat rejection through the re-cooling sub-system has the main significant impact on the system performance in the hot arid areas. Therefore, it should be based on alternative heat sink recourses with appropriate cost performance techniques.