Economic evaluation of solar thermal and photovoltaic cooling systems through simulation in different climatic conditions: An analysis in three different cities in Europe

•Analysis of solar thermal and photovoltaic cooling systems in office buildings is presented.•12 cases are evaluated for three different climates: Palermo, Madrid and Stuttgart.•Flat plate collectors and compound parabolic concentrators are considered and simulated.•Relative primary energy savings reaches 50% for the PV cooling system.•For solar thermal system the relative primary energy savings ranges from 29% to 37%.

Since several processes working with solar energy are available, a study to know which technology is more suitable considering the primary energy consumption and economy is necessary. This paper has as objectives the primary energy analysis and economic evaluation of solar thermal and photovoltaic cooling systems used for the air conditioning in office buildings applying simulation systems. Due to the climatic conditions influence on the performance of these two systems, the comparison is made for three different climates corresponding to Palermo, Madrid and Stuttgart. For each climate the same geometry and dimensions of a building are considered but with different user profiles and construction, consequently different heating and cooling loads, in total 12 cases are taken into consideration. The consumption of electricity is favored with the electricity produced by the photovoltaic modules, which covers in some of the studied cases almost the half of the total energy demand, therefore the relative primary energy savings reaches 50%, while in the case of the solar thermal system, the relative primary energy savings reaches 37% in Palermo, 36% in Madrid, and 29% in Stuttgart. Hence, simulations to determine the best work parameters in each place are suggested for the reduction of energy demands and a sensitivity analysis is presented.

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