Decision making tool to design solar cooling system coupled with building under tropical climate

Abstract In the last recent years, research in thermal comfort during summer has induced a significant increase in electricity consumption in buildings due to the notable use of mechanical vapor compression air conditioners. Solar cooling systems are an attractive alternative to overcome this problem. The development of these systems requires a fundamental approach with the development of numerical models to predict the behavior of the whole installation. The ultimate goal is to estimate the comfort, the refrigerating power, the power consumption and the overall performance of the facility based on external factors (solar radiation, outside temperature, occupancy in the building). For this, we chose the EnergyPlus environment that is proving to become a reference tool in the field of building simulation. This simulation tool facilitates the coupling of energy systems to the building with a wide range of models (solar thermal collectors, absorption chiller, stratified storage tanks, cooling tower). In this paper, we present the modeling of the solar cooling installation “RAFSOL” within the EnergyPlus environment at the Technology University Institute (IUT) of Saint Pierre in La Reunion. The simulations are then discussed and compared with data extracted from our experimental platform. Then, the model is used to propose a solution to improve the seasonal performances of the installation.