An Optimized Design of a Single Effect Absorption Solar Chiller for an Energy Consuming Optimized Designed Residential Building

Traditional fossil fuels lead to environmental problems and are also depleting. A significant portion of global energy consumption is due to building’s air conditioning. Nowadays there is a great attention toward renewable and sustainable energy sources to support the buildings energy requirements. In this study, a solar cooling machine was designed for a three-floor residential building under a hot and arid climate. At first, thermal loads of the building were calculated using Carrier software. Changes in the material and color of the exterior walls and the windows type were made to reduce the heat transfer coefficient and to get an optimized design. Results revealed that about 37% maximum heating load reduction and 12% maximum cooling load reduction can be achieved using the optimum design. On the base of the maximum cooling load and also considering safety factor, a single effect LiBr-water solar absorption chiller was designed for the optimized designed building. Two different scenarios were suggested using two types of flat plate and evacuated tube collectors. Results reported that in the case of evacuated tube collector the net collector area of 254.18 m2 was sufficient to supply the cooling power. Implementing flat plate collectors would result in occupying an area of 398.5 m2. Regarding the limitation of total area of the roof and efficiency issues, the evacuated tube collector was the best option.