International Journal of Engineering and Techniques - Volume 3 Issue 4, July-Aug 2017

RESEARCH ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS

Performance Analysis of Solar Thermal Cooling System for an Office

Building in Indian Climates using Flat Plate Collector
1
B.L.Gupta, 2Naveen Jha, 3Dhawal Vyas, 4Amit Daiya
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Govt. Engineering College Bharatpur 321001 India.
2
Department of Mathematics , Govt. Engineering College Bharatpur 321001 India.
3
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Govt. Engineering College Bharatpur 321001 India.
4
Department of Civil Engineering, Govt. Engineering College Bharatpur 321001 India.

Abstract:
In this paper performance analysis of solar thermal cooling system for an office building has been analyzed.
Analysis has been carried through simulation of a typical office building considered to be located in four
different cities, representing four climatic zones of India namely Ahmedabad (Hot and dry), Bangalore
(Moderate), Chennai (Warm and humid) and Delhi (Composite). Results indicate that the highest solar
fraction has been observed as 0.71, 0.75, 0.77, and 0.78 for hot and dry, moderate, warm and humid and
composite climate respectively. The primary energy savings are higher for the moderate climate (Bangalore) and
lowest for the warm and humid climate (Chennai).

Keywords — Solar thermal, Solar Fraction, Primary Energy Savings.

1. Introduction collector delivered a yearly average solar fraction of 81%,

while LPG –fired backup unit supplied the 19% thermal
The conventional vapour compression refrigeration cycle energy. Eicker et al. (2009) develops a full simulation
driven air conditioner using grid electricity, increases the model for absorption cooling systems, combined with a
consumption of electricity and fossil energy. Energy stratified storage tank, dynamic collector model and
sources based on fossil fuels such as coal, oil, gas, hourly building loads. They found that depending on
nuclear, etc., are cause serious environmental hazards and control strategy, location and cooling load time series,
are scarce in nature, location and volume. To reduce between 1.7 and 3.6 m2 vacuum tube collector per kW
environmental pollution and global warming Balghouthi cooling load are required to cover 80% of the cooling
et al. [2005] suggested the solar power air conditioning in load. Tsoutsos et al. (2010) take for granted that the air
place of conventional vapour compression air conditioning is responsible for a large percentage of the
conditioning systems. Assilzadeh et al. (2005) carried out greenhouse and ozone depletion effects. They suggest the
the modeling and simulation of absorption solar cooling solar cooling system for zero emission technologies and to
system with TRNSYS program. Pongtornkulpanich et al. reduce energy consumption and CO2 emission. Y Hang et
(2008) share the experience with fully operational solar al. (2011) carried out economical and environmental
driven 10 ton LiBr/H2O single effect absorption cooling assessment of an optimized solar cooling system for a
system in Thailand. They analyzed the data collected medium sized benchmark office building in Los Angeles
during 2006 and show that 72 m2 evacuated tube solar (California) having the floor area 4983 m2. In this building

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 International Journal of Engineering and Techniques - Volume 3 Issue 4, July-Aug
July 2017
150 kW capacity absorption chiller wass used with varying
collector area of 80-490 m2. The Payback is calculated as
13.8 years when the 40% subsidy sidy is provided on capital
investment.
Renato M. Lazzarin (2013) analyzed the solar thermal
cooling system with the flat plate, evacuated tube
collector and parabolic trough collectors with tracking
system. The system are evaluated during sunny days and
compared with the PV driven system and found that the
PV driven system is now ow quite comparable. Eicker et al.
(2014) performed the primary energy analysis and
economic evaluation of solar thermal cooling and solar
photovoltaic cooling system, the comparison is made for
three different climates corresponding to the Palermo,
Madrid and Stuttgart. The cooling systems while in the
case of solar thermal system relative primary energy
savings reaches 37% in Palermo, 36% in Madrid and 29%
in the Stuttgart. Various literature conclude that the
primary energy saving and, economic analysis are
different for different climates, countries an and electric Fig.1: Schematic of solar thermal cooling system
prices. [TRANSOL]
In the present work parametric
arametric study and performance
analysis of solar thermal cooling systems hhas been Table 1: Parameters considered for simulation of solar thermal
cooling system
performed considering
ring the annual solar fraction and
Component Parameter Solar thermal Source
relative primary energy savings. In the solar thermal
Solar 2 2 Henning
cooling system Flat Plate Collector was used with wide Collector Surface Area m 70-110 m 2007
variance of area ranging from 70 m2-110 110 m2 have been Solar Storage Type Vertical Eicker et al.
considered. For performance analysis, Ahmedabad 2014
Volume 5000 ltr
represents hot and dry climate, Bangalore represents
moderate climate, Chennai ai represents warm and humid Thermal Type Absorption Mateous
Chiller et.al 2009
climate and Delhi represents composite climate. The
Nominal Cooling 35 kW
cooling load of the building is different due to the climatic power
condition and consequently the system performance also Nominal COP 0.7
differs. Pump power 210 W
2 Solar Thermal Cooling Systems Compression Nominal cooling 10.5 kW (Back Eicker et al.
This system is simulated using a configuration SCH 601 Chiller power up ) 2014
from the program as shown in the fig 1. This
configuration shows the complete heating, cooling and Nominal COP 3.5
domestic hot water application. In this study only cooling
is considered for analysis purpose. The solar thermal
3 Specification of Building coupled with Solar
S
cooling system is composed
osed of a solar collector field, solar
storage tank, heat exchanger, cold storage tank and vapour
Thermal Air Conditioning.
absorption chiller. The simulation parameter and their
The building being used in this research work is an office
values are shown in table 1.
building with square envelope of 15m length and 15 m
width. The height of the Building is 3.5 meters and total
floor area is 225 m2. Building is divided in the five zones
having orientation towards north. The entire building is

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 International Journal of Engineering and Techniques - Volume 3 Issue 4, July-Aug
July 2017
used for office purpose in the day time only and whole zones. It is clear that the peak cooling load is 31.59 kW
area is conditioned. Windows on all four sides together for Delhi (composite climate) whereas
where the lowest 20.85
constitute a WWR of 26%. The detail dime dimension of kW is for Bangalore (Moderate climate)cl while annual
Building is shown in the Table 2 and in the Fig 22. cooling demand per square meter of building area is
highest 225.64 kWhth/m2 for Chennai (Warm and humid).
This indicates that
hat the peak cooling load is higher in
composite climate (Delhi) and hot and dry climate
(Ahmedabad) because the variation of temperature is
higher there resulting in the peak load but the total cooling
load is highest for warm and humid climate (Chennai)
(
where the warm and humid climateclim increases the latent
heat load than others resulting in highest
highe cooling demand.
Hot and dry climate (Ahmedabad dabad) is the second highest
cooling load city because of longer cooling period.
Annual Cooling Demand
(kWhth/m2)
250 225.64 100
194.72

Annual CoolingDemand
Fig.2: 3 D view of Building 200 80

Peak cooling load kW

155.92
130.85
kWhth/m2
150 60
Table 2 : Building Zone area and Internal load on
Building 100 40
31.07 28.23 31.59
Core East West North South 50 20.85 20
S.No Component Zone Zone Zone Zone Zone
1 Zone 212.94 143.64 143.64 143.64 143.64 0 0
3
Vol.(m )
3 WWR (%) - 27 27 23 27
2 Infiltration 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2
(ACH)
Fig.3: Annual cooling loads and peak cooling load
4 LPD(W/m2) 10.8 10.8 10.8 10.8 10.8 5 Solar Fraction
5 People(Nos.) 8 6 6 6 6 It is the ratio of the annual cooling produced by the solar
6 Equip. 80 80 80 80 80 to the total annual cooling demand of the building.
Load(W)
Solar Fraction
Annual cooling produced by by solar absorption chiller
Annual coling demand
demand of building
4 Annual Cooling Load Analysis Fig 4 shows the variation of solar fraction for different
climates and various collector areas. It is clear from the
The cooling load of the five zone building
buildings determined graph 4 that as the collector area increases the solar
using TRNSYS program. From the building cooling fraction also increases because more heat is collected by
model the cooling load can be determinedetermined partly as the collector and supplied to the solar thermal cooling
c
infiltration gain, ventilation gain, sensible gain and latent system that produce the more amount of solar cooling.
gain. In this study the building load is calculated by using The solar fraction is highest for the moderate climate
TRNSYS simulation tion program for four cities situated in (Bangalore) and lowest for the warm and humid climate
four different climate conditions. (Chennai) because the cooling load of the building is
Fig.3 shows the annual cooling demand and peak cooling 131kWhth/m2 in the moderate climate
clim is 42% less than the
load for the different cities selected
cted from different climate warm and humid climate while the solar radiation is 2094

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 International Journal of Engineering and Techniques - Volume 3 Issue 4, July-Aug 2017
2
kWh/m in the moderate climate that is 2% more than the pumps, controls and electrical chiller used as a backup. In
warm and humid climate. the solar photovoltaic cooling system the electrical
At small collector area of 70 m2 the annual heat consumption is done by the compressor, condenser fan
production is low for all the cities and solar thermal and blower. The primary energy savings is the difference
cooling system produce the low amount of cooling and in between the primary energy consumption by the solar
this condition the solar fraction is 66% for moderate thermal cooling system and the primary energy
climate (Bangalore) due to low cooling load and it is 59% consumption by the compression based cooling system
for hot and dry climate (Ahmedabad), for warm and operated by grid power.
humid climate (Chennai) 51%, and for composite climate Hot and Dry (Ahmedabad)
(Delhi) it is 63%. It is very low for the warm and humid Moderate (Bangalore)
climate (Chennai) because of the very high cooling load Warm and Humid (Chennai)
225 kWhth/m2 and low incident radiation compared to 80
other climates. As the flat plate collector area increase
from 70 m2 to 110 m2 the solar fraction for all cities

Primary energy
60

savings (%)
increases because more heat is collected by the collector
but its effect will be much more if this heat is effectively 40
utilized to produce the cooling effect. In the warm and
humid climate (Chennai) the building cooling load is very 20
high and the heat is effectively utilized so change in solar
0
fraction is higher with the increase in collector area than
other cities. If the collector area is increased from 70 m2 to 70 80 90 100 110
110 m2 the solar fraction increases from 51 % to 71 % in Collector area m2
warm and humid climate (Chennai), 59% to 75 % in hot
and dry conditions (Ahmedabad), 66% to 77% in Fig. 5 Variation of Primary Energy Savings with
moderate climate (Bangalore) and 63% to 78 % in collector area
composite climate(Delhi) Fig 5. shows the variation in primary energy savings with
Hot and Dry (Ahmedabad)
Moderate (Bangalore)
different collector areas. It is observed from the graph 5
Warm and Humid (Chennai) that the primary energy savings are increased with the
Composite (Delhi) increase in collector area (FPC), because more heat is
1.00 collected by the solar thermal collector for the same
0.90 cooling demand. The primary energy savings are higher
Solar Fraction

0.80 for the moderate climate (Bangalore) 55-62 % and lowest

0.70 for the warm and humid climate (Chennai) 44-55%. It is
0.60 between 54- 62 % for the hot and dry climate
0.50 (Ahmedabad) and 51 - 61 % for the composite climate
0.40 (Delhi). The primary energy savings are highest for
70 80 90 100 110
moderate climate due to very low cooling demand of 131
kwhth/m2 and the primary energy savings are lowest for
Collector area m2
the warm and humid climate (Chennai) because of the
very high cooling demand of 225 kwhth/m2.
Fig. 4 Variation of Solar Fraction with collector area
6. Primary Energy Savings 7. Conclusions
Primary energy consumption is calculated from energy The solar thermal cooling system is a feasible
consumption of the cooling systems by dividing it to the solution to reduce the environmental pollution and
conversion factor 0.36 [Eicker et al.]. In the solar thermal global warming. The highest solar fraction has been
cooling system the electrical energy is consumed by observed as as 0.71, 0.75, 0.77, and 0.78 for hot and

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 International Journal of Engineering and Techniques - Volume 3 Issue 4, July-Aug 2017
dry, moderate, warm and humid and composite system” Renewable Energy, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp.
climate respectively. The primary energy savings are 275 -282.
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(Chennai) 44-55%. It is between 54- 62 % for the hot cooling system for a medium-sized benchmark
office building in Los Angeles, California”
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Renewable Energy, Vol. 36, pp. 648-658.
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11. Hartmann N., Glueck C. Schmidt F.P 2011 “Solar
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