Dynamic performance analysis of a solar driving absorption chiller integrated with absorption thermal energy storage

Abstract

The use of a solar-powered absorption chiller for residential cooling is impeded by the instability and intermittency of solar energy with time. Integrating the absorption heat storage into the absorption refrigeration alleviates the mismatch between solar sources and the cold demand. This paper investigated a solar-powered absorption chiller with an absorption thermal energy storage system using a dynamic numerical model. The dynamic model is solved according to the nonlinear programming and the second-order iterative numerical integration program. Based on simulation and comparison results, the performance characteristics for the proposed system are discussed. The results indicate that the combination of an absorption chiller and absorption thermal energy storage is feasible. Compared with the reference system, the total refrigerating capacity and average performance coefficient for the proposed system are increased by 4.44% and 3.5%. Finally, the total cold storage capacity of the integrated system can reach 6890.4 MJ/day, which can extend the cooling time to about 14 h. This research provides insight into future work regarding the wide application for solar cooling.