Development of Ejector Cycle for Solar Air-Conditioning System Powered by Stored Thermal Energy Part 1. Experimental Results
Abstract
From a viewpoint of solving the global warming and the depletion of fossil energy resources, renewable energy utilization, which can reduce CO2 emission, is quite important. In addition, some countries including Germany are moving toward denuclearization due to nuclear accident at Fukushima. Therefore, renewable energy utilization become of particular importance. On the other hand, air-conditioning demand is increasing in many Asian countries like China, India, Indonesia…etc., especially in the areas of the tropical region because of economy developing. Furthermore, air-conditioning demand is increasing in cities, because of heat island phenomenon caused by releases of higher temperature exhaust heat to atmosphere. Therefore, development of the air-conditioning systems working with renewable energy including solar thermal energy is strongly promising. An ejector refrigeration cycle can provide cooling by using solar thermal energy with small consumption of electricity, which can be powered by photovoltaic Charge controller Solar PV panel Battery bank cells. The ejector refrigeration cycle resembles the vapor compression refrigeration cycle, but it uses a vapor generator and an ejector instead of a mechanical compressor to create compression effect. Figure 1 shows the schematic diagram of the system. The ejector refrigeration cycle was known as early as 1901 with the development of a steam jet refrigerator