A. Preisler1*, T. Selke1, L. Siso[6], A. LeDenn3, R. Ungerbock4

1 arsenal research, Sustainable Energy Systems, Giefinggasse 2, 1210 Vienna, Austria 2 AIGUASOL, C/ Roger de Lluria 29, 08009 Barcelona, Spain 3 TECSOL, 105 av Alfred Kastler, 66004 Perpignan, France 4 CONNESS, Conrad von Hotzendorferstrasse 103a, 8010 Graz, Austria Corresponding Author, scientific. comm@,eurosun2008.org

Abstract

The Sixth Framework Programme (6th FP) of the EC aims to cover community activities in research, technological development and demonstration (RTD). The Specific Supported Actions (SSA) focus on dissemination of previous research results, contribute to strategic objectives and prepare future RTD activities. The ROCOCO project is a case of SSA in the 6th FP, which objective is the reduction of cost of solar cooling systems. The technology of solar cooling consists of production of air-conditioning or refrigeration using the renewable energy of solar systems, particularly, the solar thermal applications.

ROCOCO aimed at the cost-competitive deployment of solar-assisted air conditioning technologies instead of conventional operated ones in order to promote energy efficiency more actively.

Consequently, the overall objective was to identify European wide cost reduction potential for Solar Cooling systems, based on the collection of dissemination from existing installations, estimation of cost tendencies by setting up comparable applications with transient simulations [1] related with costs, know-how of RTD and inclusion of industrial participants.

Keywords: solar cooling, solar-assisted air conditioning, cost reduction potential

1. Content and methodology

The activities carried out to reach the objectives have been the following:

Monitoring market and technology:

— Monitoring of market and technologies with a focus on collection available data from existing solar cooling installations and scan of research studies, literature and patents

Building sectors and applications:

— The preparation of technology and market matrix (T & M) using transient simulations [1] for obtaining energy demand values for different areas of applications: hospitals, hotels, office buildings, trade commercial centres and residential buildings.

— Setting up models of solar cooling installations using transient simulations [1] for most promising applications (absorption, adsorption and desiccant) to analyse the energy performance.

— Pre-selecting the technology and application pairs with the highest feasibility and cost reduction potential

— Collecting information from the market about costs of equipment, energy prices and maintenance services costs.

— Assessing the costs for investment (material, installation and planning) and operation (auxiliary energy, water consumption and maintenance) to analyse cost tendencies, in comparison with conventional system.

RTD Gaps, Potentials and Topics:

— Definition of the ideal specifications for components used for solar assisted cooling as solar collectors, absorption machine, adsorption machine, hot water tank, cold water tank, hydraulics, air-conditioning devices and desiccant evaporative cooling

— Identification of cost reduction potential of each component by assessment of impact for material costs, installation costs, cost for design and planning, operation costs and maintenance costs

— Cost reduction potential of energy performance, component investment costs, energy prices, engineering costs, maintenance costs and subsidies for total annualized over costs (life cycle costs) of solar cooling towards conventional cooling

— Set up of three scenarios (baseline scenario, ambitious scenario, accelerated scenario) for target prices of solar assisted cooling and evaluation through lifecycle costs and return on investment (ROI)

— Setting up questionnaires for component manufactures to get their assessment of cost reduction potential divided in R&D activities, grey energy, assembly processing, store costs, selling and after sale service

— Expert workshops for market analyses and development of market penetration strategies 2

This paper only gives some results of the most promising cases of the T & M matrix (technology x building sector) for cost reduction in solar cooling1. The figure used is the cost of primary energy unit saved [€/kWhl, that is the relation between the total annualized costs of a solar cooling plant and the total primary energy saved. This combines the effect of the costs and the performance of the system.

The different cases with absorption systems can be grouped depending in certain ranges of increase of primary energy costs over reference, as it is shown in table 2.

The different cases with desiccant systems can be grouped depending in certain ranges of increase of primary energy costs over reference, as it is shown in table 5.

1 Whole public part of ROCOCO results

http://www. arsenal. ac. at/products/products en gt cs de. html

3. Conclusion