Operating Experience of a Solar Driven 10 KWc Ammonia/Water Absorption Chiller in a Modern Winery
Abstract
Within the EU Project PolySMART (http://www.polysmart.org) a solar driven 10 kWcold ammonia/water absorption chiller prototype has been coupled with a biomass driven 3 kWelectric Stirling engine prototype at a modern winery in southern Styria. The solar driven absorption chiller has been operating for 6 years with only minor maintenance efforts at the beginning of the operation period. Constant improvements and optimization works let to the development of a market mature serial product, the PinkChiller PC19. Finally a measuring period of 12 months ended in November 2009. The results of this measuring period are presented in the paper at hand. Within the monitoring period the ammonia/water absorption chiller operated fully automatic without any maintenance requirements. For the Stirling engine a fully automatic control system was developed and implemented but the engine was not operated without human supervision because security issues occurred with very hot parts of the flue gas flaps and piping system.