Solar cooling: overview of the most promising alternatives

A paper by C. Infante-Ferreira and D.S. Kim, published in the March 2014 special issue of the International Journal of Refrigeration, gives an overview of the most promising alternatives and ranks options according to required investment for specific applications in Central Spain and the Netherlands.
The March 2014 special issue of the International Journal of Refrigeration (IJR) provides an overview of recent developments in solar cooling technologies.

About 10% of energy use in OECD countries (225,752 PJ) has potential to be served by solar driven refrigeration/heat pump cycles. A variety of options is available to convert solar energy into cooling effect.

A paper (1) by C. Infante-Ferreira and D.S. Kim gives an overview of the most promising alternatives and ranks options according to required investment for specific applications in Central Spain and the Netherlands. This investment level is based on the reported performance for the different alternative systems.

Vapor compression cycles in combination with PV collectors appear to be the best option. The second best option is vapor compression cycles driven by electricity delivered by parabolic dish collectors and Stirling engines.

The best thermally driven solution is the double-effect absorption cycle equipped with concentrating trough collectors closely followed by desiccant systems equipped with flat-plate solar collectors. Adsorption systems options are significantly more expensive.

(1) Technico-economic review of solar cooling technologies based on location-specific data, C. Infante Ferreira et al.

The full article can be downloaded via the IIR’s Fridoc database (free for IIR members within the framework of their quota of free downloads):http://www.iifiir.org/clientBookline/service/reference.asp?INSTANCE=exploitation&OUTPUT=PORTAL&DOCID=IFD_REFDOC_0010945&DOCBASE=IFD_REFDOC_EN&SETLANGUAGE=EN
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