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Cooling supply with a new type of evacuated solar collectors: a techno-economic optimization and analysis

  • Applied Solar Energy
  • Published:
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Abstract

Renewable cooling via absorption chillers being supplied by various green heat technologies such as solar collectors has been widely studied in the literature, but it is still challenging to get positive economic outcomes from such systems due to the large expenses of solar thermal systems. This study offers the use of a new generation of solar collectors, so-called eccentric reflective solar collectors, for driving single-effect absorption chillers and thereby reducing the levelized cost of cooling. This article develops the most optimal design of this system (based on several different scenarios) using multi-objective optimization techniques and employs them for a case study in Brazil to assess its proficiency compared to conventional solar-driven cooling methods. For making the benchmarking analyses fair, the conventional system is also rigorously optimized in terms of design and operation features. The results show that the eccentric solar collector would enhance the cost-effectiveness by 29%. In addition, using optimally sized storage units would be necessary to get acceptable economic performance from the system, no matter which collector type is used. For the case study, at the optimal sizing and operating conditions, the levelized cost of cooling will be 124 USD/MWh and an emission level of 18.97 kgCO2/MWh.

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Data availability

The data are available on request from the authors.

Abbreviations

A :

Area, m2

C :

Concentration

cp :

Specific heat (J/(kg K))

D :

Diameter, m

F :

Shape factor

h :

Heat transfer coefficient (W/(m22 K))

h :

Enthalpy (J)

I :

Incident solar radiation (W/m2)

k :

Thermal conductivity (W/(m K))

\(\dot{m}\) :

Mass flow rate (kg/s)

P :

Pressure (Pa)

Pr :

Prandtl number

\(\dot{Q}\) :

Heat flow (W)

\(\dot{q}\) :

Heat flow per unit area (W/m2)

r :

Interest rate

R :

Radius (m)

Re :

Reynolds number

S :

Source term

T :

Temperature (°C)

t :

Time (s)

U :

Overall heat transfer coefficient (W/m2.K)

u :

Velocity in x-axis (m/s)

v :

Velocity in r-axis (m/s)

\(x\) :

Liquid volume fraction

α :

Absorptivity

ε :

Emissivity

µ :

Dynamic viscosity ((N s)/m2)

ρ :

Density (kg/m3)

σ :

Stefan-Boltzmann constant (W/(m2 K4))

τ :

Transmissivity

ϖ :

Generic extensive property

ζ :

Maximum error

a :

Absorber tube

abs :

Chiller absorber

c :

Cover

cond :

Codenser

conv :

Convection

env :

Environment

eva :

Evaporator

ext :

External

gen :

Desorber

HEx :

Heat exchanger

h :

Hot

int :

Internal

rad :

Radiation

CFC :

Chlorofluorocarbon gas

CCGT :

Combined cycle gas turbine

COP :

Coefficient of performance

ETC :

Evacuated tube collector

GHG :

Greenhouse gas emission

LCOC :

Levelized cost of cooling

LHV :

Lower calorific value

SIMPLE :

Semi-implicit method for pressure-linked equations

TDMA :

Tri-diagonal matrix algorithm

References

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Funding

This work was supported by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa e ao Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico do Maranhão (Fapema) for the PhD grant (grant number BD-08373/17), Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) (grant number 88887.574668/2020–00), and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) (grant number 304372/2016–1).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Energy Department, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, State University of Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil

    Mavd P. R. Teles & Kamal A. R. Ismail

  2. Energy Department, Aalborg University, Esbjerg, Denmark

    Mavd P. R. Teles & Brenda V. F. Silva

  3. Department of Engineering, Shahrood Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shahrood, Iran

    Meisam Sadi

  4. Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

    Ahmad Arabkoohsar

  5. Production and Recycling of Materials and Energy Research Center, Qom Branch, Islamic Azad University, Qom, Iran

    Hadi Kargarsharifabad

  6. Energy and Sustainable Development Research Center, Semnan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Semnan, Iran

    Shahin Shoeibi

Authors
  1. Mavd P. R. Teles
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  2. Meisam Sadi
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  3. Kamal A. R. Ismail
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  4. Ahmad Arabkoohsar
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  5. Brenda V. F. Silva
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  6. Hadi Kargarsharifabad
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  7. Shahin Shoeibi
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Contributions

Mavd P. R. Teles: data collection and experimentation; writing—review and editing.

Meisam Sadi: writing—original draft; formal analysis; visualization.

Kamal A. R. Ismail: formal analysis; methodology.

Ahmad Arabkoohsar: conceptualization, project administration (supporting).

Brenda V. F. Silva: methodology; validation; project administration (supporting).

Hadi Kargarsharifabad: conceptualization, supervision.

Shahin Shoeibi: writing—original draft, review and editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Meisam Sadi.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Consent to participate

The participants accepted to take part in this research project with certain ethical standards.

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The authors give the publisher permission to publish the work.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Responsible Editor: Philippe Garrigues

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Teles, M.P.R., Sadi, M., Ismail, K.A.R. et al. Cooling supply with a new type of evacuated solar collectors: a techno-economic optimization and analysis. Environ Sci Pollut Res 31, 18171–18187 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-25715-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-25715-0

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