Open Access

ARTICLE

Analysis of Solar Direct-Driven Organic Rankine Cycle Powered Vapor Compression Cooling System Combined with Electric Motor for Office Building Air-Conditioning

Xiang Xiao¹, Wei Zhao¹, Wei Wang¹, Wei Zhang¹, Xianbiao Bu², Lingbao Wang^2,*, Huashan Li²

1 Electric Power Research Institute of Guangdong Power Grid Co., Ltd., Guangzhou, 510640, China
2 Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510640, China

* Corresponding Author: Lingbao Wang. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Advanced Heat Pump Technologies for Renewable Energy Utilization)

Energy Engineering 2021, 118(1), 89-101. https://doi.org/10.32604/EE.2020.014016

Received 28 August 2020; Accepted 28 September 2020; Issue published 17 November 2020

Abstract

Solar energy powered organic Rankine cycle vapor compression cycle (ORC-VCC) is a good alternative to convert solar heat into a cooling effect. In this study, an ORC-VCC system driven by solar energy combined with electric motor is proposed to ensure smooth operation under the conditions that solar radiation is unstable and discontinuous, and an office building located in Guangzhou, China is selected as a case study. The results show that beam solar radiation and generation temperature have considerable effects on the system performance. There is an optimal generation temperature at which the system achieves optimum performance. Also, as a key indicator, the cooling power per square meter collector should be considered in the hybrid solar cooling system in design process. Compared to the vapor compression cooling system, the hybrid cooling system can save almost 68.23% of electricity consumption.

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