Abstract :
[en] Due to economical and environmental concerns, the energy e fficiency of buildings nowadays has proven to play an increasingly important role. To satisfy the occupants comfort, the cooling of buildings generally involves a considerable consumption of electricity. Solar radiation, which is a free and renewable resource, is linked to the cooling needs of buildings.
This work consists in the evaluation, from an energy-saving and economical point of view, of a potential use of solar energy for air-conditioning in residential and o ffice buildings. It includes an integral approach of solar air-conditioning, involving the analysis of the buildings cooling needs, the cold production devices, the solar collector fields and climates. This analysis is supported by
simulations and experimental setups.
The study of solar air-conditioning systems already available on the market or in laboratories reveals their operational principles as well as their main performance indicators. Two main solar cooling paths are investigated: a thermal and a photovoltaic conversion of solar energy. Besides this, the performance of the entire air-conditioning system broadens the question of the energy performance to the interactions between the diff erent parts of the system.
The building thermal loads (heating, cooling, domestic hot water) of some theoretical residential and o ffice buildings are computed in a part of this work dealing with the influence of the comfort model, the building energy performance level and the climate. What comes across through this analysis is that, the location of the buildings put aside, the cooling load is greatly influenced
by the envelope thermal performance and the internal gains. The cooling systems involving absorption or adsorption or vapour compression chiller cooling machines are simulated for the previously defi ned building cases. The use of solar energy through thermal collectors for heating meets higher primary energy savings than for cooling. In all cases, the thermally
driven system achieves a lower energy and economical performance than a vapour compression chiller partially supplied with a photovoltaic field. Some real scale testing of solar air-conditioning systems was carried out in Arlon (Belgium). A thermally driven adsorption chiller and a vapour compression chiller with a photovoltaic grid-connected fi eld were operated during the cooling season. The measurements made during this experiment and their
analysis manage to discover every thermal and electrical energy flows of the
systems leading to a new adsorption chiller model. Concerning the comparison with the simulations, the main point of interest is the consumption of electricity dedicated to thermally driven systems, which is two times higher in real scale conditions. The results obtained from the monitoring campaigns corroborate the simulation results about system comparison.
