Solar adsorption cooling system: development of a plant for air conditioning of a small office

The presented work aimed at the design, building and preliminary results of a solar cooling plant for air conditioning of a small office located at the CNR ITAE in Messina. The layout chosen for the solar cooling system consists of a solar thermal collectors field connected in parallel with a backup gas boiler, which are connected to a hot water storage that works as a thermal buffer between the heat generation devices and the adsorption chiller. The design of the system was carried out by means of a numerical model implemented in TRNSYS. Starting from the outcomes of the simulations, the plant was installed for the air conditioning of a small office. In order to enhance the adsorption chiller performance high temperature, radiant terminals have been selected and installed into the office. Several sensors have been installed in order to measure the parameters (e.g. temperature, humidity, solar radiation) needed for the evaluation of the performance of the whole system. The preliminary results show that the built up system is able to maintain the indoor comfort conditions even during the hottest Sicilian summer days. Future activity will be devoted to the identification of the main parameters that affect the performance of the plant.