Simulation Based Performance Analysis of a Medium Temperature Solar Thermal Cooling System for a Hotel
Abstract
A solar thermal cooling system for a hotel was designed and simulated in order to know its behaviour and to evaluate its performance and feasibility. This solar cooling system is planned to be installed during the next year in a Palma de Mallorca hotel and is going to be the first one to incorporate the ‘CCstaR’ collector, that consists in a solar thermal concentrator with fixed reflector and tracking absorber. Due to the typology of the hotel, with ten floors and poor isolation, solar energy can not be the main heat source; therefore a bio-mass heater was included in the design. A double effect absorption chiller was also comprised in the system to generate chilled water for the air conditioning of the hotel. The system was simulated with the Transient System Simulation program (TRNSYS). It was found that the average efficiency of the solar concentrator with respect to the beam radiation was 51.8% and that the system could provide 7.2% of the energy for the hotel space cooling if a properly sized cold storage tank and an efficient control are included. The operating temperature for the solar concentrator was around 155ºC.