To assess the feasibility of a solar assisted air conditioning system, to find an appropriate system design or to investigate the advantages of selected technical solutions, computer based design tools have to be applied. Different types of design tools exist to meet the different requirements in the planning phase. Not in any case, a detailed simulation of a solar assisted air-conditioning system is required from the very beginning. On the other hand, there is no tool which meets all requirements at different levels of the planning phase. The range of existing tools may be sorted into different categories: easy-to-use pre­feasibility tools, allowing a fast calculation of basic key figures; simulation and sizing tools which also provide fast results but allow more distinction between different system configurations; and open simulation tools for advanced studies of a certain system configuration.

In this chapter, a non-exhaustive overview of a few computer tools is provided.