J. Bote Garcia, A. Gal, D. Tavan*

Energy Efficiency & Comfort Group, R&D Division, Acciona Infraestructuras
Calle Valportillo II, 8, 28108 Alcobendas, Spain

* Corresponding Author, dtavan@acciona. es

Abstract

This article gives an insight on working solar-driven cooling systems that were integrate in an office building used by researchers at the Plataforma Solar de Almeria. Implemented systems combined both passive and active solar cooling techniques in order to minimize the energy consumption of HVAC systems while maintaining an adequate thermal comfort inside the building. The control strategy is briefly described whose goal is to maximize the use of renewable sources over conventional ones whenever they are available. This is the key to achieving a reduction by 80 to 90% of overall energy consumption with regard to typical energy needs for office buildings.

Keywords: Solar driven cooling, Absorption Heat-pump, Night cooling, Radiative cooling, Supervision control and data acquisition

1. Introduction

With the ARFRISOL (Bioclimatic Architecture and Solar Cooling) project, the Spanish Ministry of Innovation and Science is promoting energy efficiency in office buildings. As part of the project objectives, five office buildings are to be built or rehabilitated in different climatic zone of Spain in order to experiment various energy saving and renewable energy techniques and demonstrate that the energy consumption of office buildings can be cut by 80-90%, while the remaining conventional energy consumption can be supplied by active solar systems (e. g. solar thermal collectors for heating and cooling and photovoltaic panels for electricity). Acciona Infraestructuras is responsible for the construction of one of these high energy performance buildings situated in the Solar Platform of Almeria (PSA) in the south of Spain. The purpose of this paper is to explain the solar cooling techniques used in this building and the control strategies that have been designed to achieve high energy performance.