Abstract
With the increase in oil prices, developing nations end up paying expensive electricity and heating bill. This leading study investigates the experimental development of a new energy-saving system by integrating a solar water heater and solar cooling absorption cycle with a conventional boiler for domestic hot water and heating purposes. The heating and cooling load calculations for space heating of the building were calculated using TRNSYS 14.1 computer software and the results were used in calculating the energy-saving value. A 65 flat plate solar collector-chiller system with a total surface area of 130 m2 was integrated with the boiler and used to supply heating and cooling for a three-story building (1500 m2) in Al Bayt University, Jordan. The integrated system helped to save energy, reduced the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere, supplied hot water, and space heating/cooling requirements to the building year-round, and reduced the overall energy cost of heating and cooling by 55% and 48%, respectively. Moreover, the techno-economic analysis showed that the payback period of the combined system with a total cost of $18,650 is roughly 2.5-year. The solar water heating/cooling system has the potential to provide more than 50% of the house energy demand free of charge with a significant reduction in carbon footprint.
Highlights
Crude oil is the main source of energy that is used for production and manufacturing processes and is a key element causing a rising global greenhouse gas emission footprint [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
The economic analysis regarding the use of solar energy in the combined boiler–solar water heating/cooling system to substantially reduce energy costs based on the fixed capital (FC) and operating cost
The percentage of energy-saving reported in the present study is higher than the results reported by Abd-ur-Rehman and Al-Sulaiman [47] who reported 50% savings in electrical energy demand by using domestic solar water heating (SWH) in ten different cities in Saudi Arabia
Summary
Crude oil is the main source of energy that is used for production and manufacturing processes and is a key element causing a rising global greenhouse gas emission footprint [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. Middle Eastern countries, with a specific focus on Jordan, have faced a multitude of challenges importing and utilizing crude oil, including the shortage in local energy resources, the difficult economic situation, fluctuations in the prices of crude oil, and military conflicts in neighboring countries [9,10,11,12]. Jordan is amongst various developing nations that do not have enough stock of the conventional energy resource [13] and depend on imported crude oil from neighboring Arab countries. Jordan’s imported energy resources represent more than 95% of the country’s total energy demand [14,15]. The country’s annual oil demand in 2015 was approximately 8.93
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