Experimental results of a solar powered cooling system at low temperature

A solar thermochemical prototype producing low-temperature cold has been built and tested during the summer and autumn 2005 in Perpignan, France. It cools a 560 L cold box down to about −25 °C using only low-grade heat produced by two simple flat plate solar collectors. The process involves two cascaded thermochemical systems using BaCl2 salt reacting with ammonia. Its working mode is discontinuous, as it alternates between one decomposition mode at high pressure (daytime) and one cold production mode at low pressure (nighttime). Experimental results prove the feasibility of this new concept of solar cold production, with temperatures as low as −30 °C, demonstrate its potential use in housing, by the acceptable size and weight of the system and show the system performances during the sunniest months of the year, with a rough solar coefficient of performance (COP) of about 0.031 over the test period. The major meteorological parameters influencing the process efficiency are the solar irradiation and the outside temperature.