Techno-Economic Comparison of Solar Assisted Absorption and Compression Refrigeration Systems for Air Conditioning of an Office Building

The application of solar energy for space cooling has been increasingly considered in Iran and other countries in the last two decades. In this study, two different configurations of a solar assisted refrigeration system have been studied. The first system is the combination of a lithium bromide vapor absorption refrigeration system and flat plate collectors. The other system is consisted of a compression refrigeration system and thermal photovoltaic panels. For this purpose, 32% of the roof area of the building has been covered with 105 flat plate collectors, each with a total area of 1.591 m2, or 288 photovoltaic panels each with an area of 0.556 m2. Both systems have been compared in terms of energy, exergy, and economic viewpoints. This comparison has been conducted for providing the 70 kW cooling capacity system required for an office building with an area of 500 m2. The results of this study showed that at an evaporator temperature of 5°C and the ambient temperature of 27°C, the coefficient of performance of the compression chiller is 3.5 and the absorption chiller is 0.71. Also, the total energy efficiency and the total exergy efficiency in the compression chiller system combined with thermal photovoltaic panels are 7.43% and 8.25% respectively. Those two parameters for the absorption chiller combined with flat plate collectors are 9.16% and 6.66%, respectively. In the economic analysis, the annual life cycle cost for the compression chiller system combined with thermal photovoltaic collectors is 9710 $ and this cost for the absorption chiller system combined with flat plate collectors is estimated 7649 $.