Case study for experimental validation of a new presizing tool for solar heating, cooling and domestic hot water closed systems

This paper presents a case study experimental validation of PISTACHE which is a new presizing tool intended for designers and planners. It facilitates pre-design and allows the evaluation of annual performance and the integration potential of solar heating, cooling and domestic hot water closed systems. This new tool has been performed in order to standardize the sizing methodology and the comparison of the SHC&DHW closed systems. The comparison framework used in PISTACHE has been performed using seasonal performance indicators that were issued and gathered from experimental data provided by several operating plants. Thus, PISTACHE is an easy graphical user interface and free downloadable tool. In order to check the reliability of the new developed tool, two configuration modes are investigated in this experimental study: a simple cooling mode (RAFSOL plant) and a double cooling and heating mode (SONNENKRAFT installation). The whole validation process is performed using the GenOpt optimization program to determine the optimum set of internal parameters for PISTACHE tool.