The system was simulated with different numbers of collectors and varying sizes ice storage. The parameters variation is shown in table 2.

10 12 14 16 18 20 22

Number of Collectors

Fig. 9 Solar Fraction of the system with differed Fig. до Overall efficiency of the system with different

storage volume storage volume

Following the results of the simulation (timestep = 1 min) are presented in the form of diagrams.

The simulations highlighted that the system’s solar fraction, for the given process rises with the collector field size, ranging from approximately 21 to 28% depending on the storage size. At the same time the overall efficiency of the solar system drops from about 22 to 16%. The latter is mainly due to defocusing of the collector (dumping energy) when the solar heat input exceeds the

needs (see Fig. 9). Moreover the influence of the storage size shows a milder effect on the solar fraction and system efficiency than the size of the collector field. Nevertheless it is to mention, that the influence of the storage size increases with larger collector field’s areas due to the fact that part of the additional heat delivered by the bigger collector field can be stored on the “cold side” of the system. With smaller collector fields a large storage is not needed, since in most cases the smaller amount of produced cold will be extracted from the solar cooling system before the storage will be completely charged (avoiding collector defocus). Furthermore the analysis highlighted that the

maximum SF achievable (about 28%) for the system concept and application is slightly smaller than for conventional air-conditioning solar assisted systems.