Evaluation, Diagnosis and Improvement of a Solar Cooling Plant by Means of Experimental Analysis and Dynamic Simulation
Abstract
Although the experimental studies of the solar cooling systems provide more reliable information about the installation performance, the theoretic studies are the first link of the design. In this way, an initial difficulty that the solar cooling planners have to face is how design the whole system. Nowadays several tools are available, from the simplest ones to the most complex ones, as the dynamic simulations tool. This paper focuses in the validation of a dynamic simulation model used to describe the performance of an existing solar cooling installation located in Zaragoza (Spain). The dynamic model was developed under the simulation environment TRNSYS. The key issue of the model was the absorption chiller type, realized from the results data of the monitoring system Since the COP of real solar cooling presented a great influence from its heat rejection sink, a dry cooler, once the model was validated with the experimental data, was used to predict the performance of the chiller with the new geothermal sink, which started to operate in 2009. The present work describes the design and validation model process, the same way the comparison between the model results and monitoring ones, depending of heat rejection scenarios.