Solar cooling

Particularly important are solar thermal air systems for solar cooling, since many countries in the world do have electricity shortages in summer. A solar cooling application uses the great offer of solar radiation in the summer period to drive a cooling application which needs heat instead of electrical power. For example an open cycle desiccant evaporative cooling (DEC) device benefits directly from hot air with high temperatures to perform best.

Especially in the south of Europe, the demand on cooling devices is great and still raising. The high amount of irradiation disqualifies every solar system that is vulnerable to stagnation in any circumstances.

1.2 Drying applications

Obviously solar air collectors are particularly suitable to drive large scale drying applications (e. g. for wood pellets, food, technical products).

But the range of suitable applications is even greater. There is a still developing field of lossless physical heat storages with sorption materials. These can be regenerated with hot air and store the energy until the reverse reaction of humidification is launched. The availability of materials improves and the processes work best with a high temperature level of the hot air.

Another field of applications might be the prevention of condensing occurrences or problems with high humidity by all means. For these a very high temperaturelevel might be not needed, but still a useful one even with bad weather conditions as low radiation or low ambient temperatures.

In any case, only a high efficient collector can meet these demands.