Simulation and study of energy performance of solar thermal driven air-conditioning system in hot and humid climate

Solar radiation is a renewable and clean source of energy; it is one of the alternative sources of energy to reduce the dependency on fossil fuel for energy generation. Conventional cooling system account for a large proportion of a building’s energy consumption, a solar powered cooling system seems to be an attractive alternative. This study presents a solar cooling system that has been designed for Singapore climate. The modelling and simulation of the solar cooling system is carried out using TRNSYS. The program is able to simulate Singapore weather over an entire year from recorded data. An office space of 1620m3 was simulated. Studies were carried out to optimise the setting of the solar thermal collector. Three systems, refrigerant chiller system, solar driven absorption chiller system and a combination system of refrigerant and absorption chiller were compared. The refrigerant chiller system was used as a baseline during the study. The refrigerant chiller system outperform among the three system, in term of energy saving and operating cost.Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering