Performance Study of Photovoltaic/Thermal Collector System for Cold Production by Adsorption in a Mediterranean Climate: Foodstuffs Preservation

Abstract

This work presents a numerical study on the performance of a stand-alone adsorption cooling system based on the silica gel/water couple driven by hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PVT) collectors. This system is intended for the conservation of perishable agricultural products which require air-conditioned premises to preserve them. The weather conditions are those of North Africa (Algiers). Considering the above, this paper aims at analyzing the PVT-Adsorption system with energy storage to guarantee a stabilized production and increase the solar coverage. trnsys was used to simulate the system taking into account hourly series of irradiation and ambient temperature covering one year. The performance study reveals that the DualSun PVT hybrid collectors used provide optimal annual production and that the adsorption cooling system offers more reliable production during summer. The temperature difference between the inside and outside of the cooled enclosure balances supply and demand. The loss analysis of the storage device indicates that losses depend, on the one hand, on the interior/exterior temperature difference of the storage tank with more significant values during the summer season. On the other hand, the losses also depend on the volume of the storage tank which was optimized in order to limit the heat exchange with the surroundings.