Retrofitting of a solar cooling and heating plant by employing PCM storage and adjusting control strategy

Li Huang, Udo Piontek, Lulu Zhuang, Rongyue Zheng and Deqiu Zou

Applied Energy, 2024, vol. 368, issue C, No S0306261924008456

Abstract: A solar cooling and heating plant with a 1000 l hot water storage tank has been operated since 2018. Two main problems were observed: (1) a fluctuating operation of the absorption chiller due to a high number of stat-up and shut-down procedures; (2) high electricity consumption caused by a low solar fraction SFn of 50.9% during the cooling period. In 2021, the solar plant was retrofitted by employing a shell and tube heat exchanger based on a PCM melting at 64 °C and by adjusting the control strategy. The system performance was evaluated and compared before and after retrofitting based on the operational data in 2021 and 2022. The total number of switch-on times of the chiller shrank by 33.5% and the operation time was increased by 65% in 2022 due to the stable hot water inlet temperature. Contributing to the high heat storage capacity of the PCM storage, more solar thermal energy was utilized and the average SFn reached 75.6% during the cooling period in 2022, leading to a 24.4% reduction in the total electricity consumption compared to 2021.

Keywords: Solar cooling; Solar heating; Phase change material; Absorption chiller; Control strategy; Solar fraction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2024.123462

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