Solarhybrid Heating and Cooling – an Environmental Friendly and Economic HVAC Solution
Abstract
Due to increasing living comfort and climate change, an increase in building air-conditioning demand can be expected. Solar air-conditioning is intuitively a good solution, justified by the coincidence of solar irradiation and cooling demand. The Austrian research project SolarHybrid deals with the systematic processing and optimization of solar thermal and photovoltaic driven cooling technologies, especially in order to design promising (solar-) hybrid solutions. The project includes the construction and measurements of functional models of a single/half effect NH3/H2O absorption chiller and a NH3 vapour compression chiller. The system design and optimization is carried out by means of annual dynamic system simulations for three load profiles. The combination of the absorption chiller and the vapour compression chiller represent an interesting initial position for effective and economic attractive solar driven HVAC solutions. Under the considered boundary conditions the solar thermal configurations appear to be more efficient and more cost competitive than the PV or PVT variations. Solar heating and cooling can become cost competitive when systems are designed clever with simple HVAC layouts, advanced control strategies and high efficient components.