Accepted Manuscript

Solar heating and cooling: Present and future development

T.S. Ge, R.Z. Wang, Z.Y. Xu, Q.W. Pan, S. Du, X.M. Chen, T. Ma, X.N. Wu, X.L. Sun,
J.F. Chen

PII: S0960-1481(17)30585-2
DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2017.06.081
Reference: RENE 8948

To appear in: Renewable Energy

Received Date: 12 January 2017

Revised Date: 14 May 2017
Accepted Date: 22 June 2017

Please cite this article as: Ge TS, Wang RZ, Xu ZY, Pan QW, Du S, Chen XM, Ma T, Wu XN, Sun XL,
Chen JF, Solar heating and cooling: Present and future development, Renewable Energy (2017), doi:
10.1016/j.renene.2017.06.081.

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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
1 Solar Heating and Cooling: Present and Future Development
2
3 T.S. Ge, R.Z. Wang*, Z.Y. Xu, Q.W. Pan, S. Du, X.M. Chen, T. Ma, X.N. Wu, X.L. Sun, J.F. Chen
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5 Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
6 Key Laboratory of Power Mechanical Engineering, MOE China
7 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai, 200240, China

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8 *Email: rzwang@sjtu.edu.cn, Tel: +86-(0)21-34206548, Fax: +86-(0)21-34206548
9
10 Abstract

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11 Using conventional fossil fuels causes both energy crisis and environmental pollution. Renewable energy with
12 the merits of almost unlimited availability and environmental-friendliness provides a perfect solution to the

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13 problem. Solar energy is widely recognized as one of the most important renewable energy resources due to its
14 even distribution, safety and serving as sources for others. In past decades, global solar thermal capacity
15 increases rapidly and now it has been widely used worldwide to provide heating and cooling. To understand the

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16 current progress of relevant technologies and the future development, this paper briefly summarizes the current
17 situation of solar heating and cooling, and then some new achievements in related areas and potential future
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18 market penetration are discussed. It is found that solar hot water heating system’s development is in fast lane in
19 recent years with evacuated tube solar collector dominating the mass market. How to integrate solar collecting
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20 system with different types of buildings is the main research and development direction for solar building
21 heating system. Large-scale district water heating system and solar PVT system as the most promising solutions
22 attract extensive attentions. For solar cooling, efforts have been made to improve the efficiency of conventional
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23 solar thermal cooling methods in terms of adsorption and absorption technology. In addition to technical
24 development, economic analysis of solar heating and cooling system is also discussed. Return of investment
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25 period is widely adopted to evaluate the economic performance. Results reveal that low initial cost and
26 advantageous allowance are the most efficient ways to make solar heating and cooling system economically
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27 attractive.
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29 Key words: Solar energy; Solar heating; Solar cooling; Development; Economic analysis.
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31 1. Introduction
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32 Energy has already become a crucial issue for humankinds. We are still heavily relying on traditional fossil
33 energy such as coal, natural gas and oil, which accounts for 78.3% of global energy consumption in 2014 [1].
34 However, fossil energy is not unlimited and we are going to run out of it if the trend continues. Meanwhile, fossil
35 energy is mainly utilized in the form of direct combustion to produce electricity as well as thermal energy. This
36 method causes severe environmental problems such as air pollution and intensive CO2 emission. Renewable
37 energy with the merits of unlimited resource and cleanness can help us to overcome the problems caused. The
38 renewable energy includes solar, wind, geothermal etc., in which solar energy is recognized as an important one
39 due to its characteristics of even distribution and cleanness.
40 Solar energy reaches to the earth surface by radiation and there are two ways to utilize, one is solar collector to

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1 produce thermal energy and another is PV producing electricity. Statistics shows that the total global solar
2 thermal capacity and solar PV capacity reaches 435 GW and 227GW in 2015 end respectively. Especially for
3 the global solar thermal capacity, it increases greatly in the past decades (Fig.1) and now solar thermal energy
4 has been widely used worldwide to provide heating and cooling [1]. The related solar thermal technologies also
5 develop rapidly. This paper will briefly summarize the current progress of solar heating and cooling, aiming to
6 introduce the new achievement based on our experiences and to discuss the future market penetration.
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10 Fig.1 Global solar thermal capacity in operation and annual energy yields 2000-2015 [2]
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12 2. Solar heating
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13 Hot water and space heating consumes a great proportion of energy consumption in buildings.
14 Non-renewable sources including electricity or natural gas are significant supply. Due to the roaring concerns on
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15 energy conservation and environmental protection, using electricity or fossil fuel driven heating devices in
16 buildings is limited in many countries, solar energy are proposed instead to meet the legislation. Converting solar
17 radiation into heat is the most simple and direct application of solar energy, with greater potential than other
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18 forms of renewable sources.

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20 2.1 Solar water heating
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21 Solar water heating is one of the most widely used water heating system worldwide. The solar water heater
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22 can convert solar energy into concentrated heat efficiently, with advantages of mature technology based, low risk
23 on global warming and low life cycle cost. The global capacity of solar water heating collector (Fig.1) has been
24 increasing from less than 100 GW in 2004 to nearly 450 GW in 2015, and domestic hot water system is the most
25 important market segment [1]. The vast majority of global solar water heating capacity was installed in China.
26 As shown in Fig.2, in the year 2014, China accounted for 71% of the world installed capacity of solar water
27 heating collectors. The next nine countries including the United States, Germany, Turkey, Brazil, Australia, India,
28 Austria, Greece and Japan shared the rest 19% [1]. China is also the primary driver of demand for new solar
29 thermal capacity, especially the market segment in multi-floor residences keeps increasing in past 3 years.

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1

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2 Fig. 2 Shares of the solar water heating collectors global capacity [1]
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4 Solar collector is recognized as the key component of solar water heating system and extensive works have
5 been done. Jaisankar et al. [3] reviewed different types of solar collectors and discussed the feasible method to
6 improve heat transfer efficiency. Shukla et al. [4] summarized recent significant studies on solar water heating

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7 system with respect to different types of solar collector. Flat plate collectors, evacuated tube collectors and
8 compound parabolic concentrator are the main types in solar water heating system and their corresponding
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9 performances are concluded in Table 1. Fig.3 shows the distribution of different solar collector. It can be seen
10 that evacuated tube collectors and flat plate collectors are the two major types in solar water heating.
11 Temperatures can be obtained by plate and evacuated tube collectors are 30-65oC and the corresponding
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12 efficiency of collector is about 50-80%. Detailed performance of collectors could differ widely depending on the
13 collector design, meteorological circumstances, heating demand, load profile and cost, thus the selection of the
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14 collectors must meet technical and economic consideration at the same time. Most of the solar water collectors
15 installed are glazed, in 2014, the unglazed water collectors accounted for 6.7% of the cumulated capacity in
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16 operation, and only 3.7% of the incremental capacity. For unglazed and glazed water collectors, the evacuated
17 tube collectors are now the dominate collector technology worldwide. In 2014, the evacuated tube collectors
18 accounted for 77.9% of the new installed capacity [1, 2]. Solar water heating systems are built up with use of
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19 different types of solar collectors.

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21 Table 1 Table of developments of solar collector in solar water heating system [3] [4]
Type Temperature Collector efficiency
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Flat plate collector Outlet temperature of collector : 27-60 C 52-80%
Temperature of water tank: 45-65oC

Evacuated tube collector Outlet temperature of collector : 27-60oC 55-80%

Temperature of water tank: 45-65oC
Compound parabolic concentrator Outlet temperature of collector : 66-80oC 65-80%
Temperature of water tank: 37-65oC
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2 Fig. 3 Distribution by type of solar thermal collector by the end of 2014 [2]
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4 2.1.1 Passive water heating system
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Solar water heating system usually consists of solar collector, water tank, working fluid and circulation
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6 pipelines. Based on the driven forces to realize the circulation of working fluid within the system, solar water
7 heating systems are divided into two categories: passive and active systems. For passive system, the circulation
8 of working fluid is realized by density difference and it is named as thermosyphon system. In such systems,
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9 working fluid is heated in the solar collector with increasing temperature and decreasing density, and then hotter
10 working fluid automatically goes into the storage tank. Heat transfer design of solar collector greatly affects the
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11 overall performance of thermosyphon system, some researchers concentrated on optimal heat transfer analysis
12 of solar collector based on mathematical model [5, 6]. Some proposed using heat pipe within solar collector to
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13 increase the collecting efficiency [7, 8]. Also, some researchers conducted practical experiments to obtain
14 validated results [9, 10].
15 In order to solve the problems of high heat losses on back side of solar collector and to reduce required space
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16 for many components, integrated collector storage solar water heating system is developed. In such systems, a
17 single unit functions as both absorber and storage, both collector and storage tank are utilized to collect solar
18 radiation. However it suffers from heavy heat losses, especially during cloudy hours. Singh et al. [11] gave a
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19 comprehensive review on the development of integrated collector water heating. He pointed out that this kind of
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20 system is compact in size, affordable and aesthetically attractive. Concentrating type system collector has higher
21 collecting efficiency but also suffers from high thermal losses during night time, its overall efficiency was
22 observed no higher than flat plat collector. Methods in terms of selective coating, double tanks, thermal diode
23 and transparent insulating covers and PCM adopted in tank are proven to be effective solution for integrated
24 collector storage solar water heating system.
25
26 2.1.2 Active water heating system
27 Contrarily, active system adopts a pump to drive the operation of working fluid from tank to solar collector,
28 and direct system which adopts water as working fluid in solar collector is the conventional type. All-glass
29 vacuum tube collectors are widely adopted in direct circulation system. Meanwhile in the past few decades,
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1 majority of vacuum tube collectors were used for domestic water heating purposes. Investigations on direct
2 active water heating system mainly concentrate on improving collecting efficiency by optimal solar collector
3 design and testing practical system performance under different climatic conditions [12, 13].
4 Indirect active water heating system utilizes two loops to realize heating, one is collector loop and another is
5 water tank loop. Water, refrigerants, and anti-freeze mixtures can be adopted in closed loop. Solar heat collected
6 by these working fluids is transferred to water by a heat exchanger. Compared with direct system, the indirect
7 system can operate when ambient temperature is even under 0oC.

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8 Combined solar water heating system as one major type of indirect systems now attacts more and more
9 attentions. To ensure continuous and stable operation of the thermal system, solar heat is usually combined with
10 back-up energy sources. Technically speaking, the solar heating system can be combined with all kinds of other

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11 fuels, such as electricity or fossil fuels, though it is not always environmentally and economically feasible. To
12 improve performance and economic efficiency of solar combine system, renewable sources and new

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13 technologies such as geothermal heat and biomass source heat are considered as back-up for the solar heating
14 system. Heat pump, which has been developing rapidly for recent years, is another promising technology for
15 water and space heating. In the past years, the combination of solar heating and heat pump technology has been

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16 investigated and commercialized for domestic hot water and space heating. Air source heat pump system takes
17 the ambient air as the heat source, compared with other renewable energy; energy supply of air source heat
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18 pump system is continuous, stable, and available anytime and anywhere. Besides, the heat pump is a kind of
19 well-developed technology with a massive market application, which could be suitable for both small-scale
20 individual domestic system and large-scale district heating system. The combination of two most promising
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21 water heating technologies results in great market potential for the solar heat pump water heating system. During
22 the last year, solar heat pump systems with numerous combinations of heat pumps and solar collectors has been
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23 proposed, developed and become market-ready [14-17].

24 Fig. 4 shows the structure of a typical direct-expanded solar assisted heat pump (DX-SAHP) system, in which
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25 the solar collector works as evaporator of the heat pump system simultaneously, and solar is absorbed directly as
26 the heat source for the system to improve performance. When a bare solar collector is used, the
27 collector/evaporator can abstract heat from both solar radiation and ambient air, thus the combined system can
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28 operate in all weathers and all day. Fig.5 shows that with solar radiation intensity of 300W/m2, average COP of
29 the system with hot water temperature of 55oC is 4.1 [18], while with solar radiation intensity of 700W/m2,
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30 average COP of the system with hot water temperature of 55oC can reach 5.6 [19].
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32 (a) (b)
33 Fig.4 Schematic figure of DX-SAHP Fig.5 Performance of system with R (a) 300W/m (b)700W/m2
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1 Recently, Gautam et al. [20] gave an updated review on both different components and global examples of
2 solar water heating systems, with techno-economic evaluation conducted. RaisulIslam et al. [21] presented an
3 overview of various types of solar assisted water heating systems and their market potential. The main
4 performances obtained with respect to different types of solar water heating system are summarized in Table 2.
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6 Table 2 Performance review of solar water heating system [20, 21]
Category Collector type Working fluid Efficiency of hot
water system

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Passive Thermonyphon Flat plate collector Water , R11, Alcohol 38-82%
system system (some with heat pipe)
Evacuated tube collector Water, CO2 59-66%

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Integrated Built-in-storage Water 20-57%
collector storage Compound parabolic concentrator 35-65%
system Flat plate collector 20-40%

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Active Direct water Evacuated tube collector Water 30-70%
system heating system V-trough reflector
Indirect water Flat plate collector R12, R134a, R22, COP: 2.5-6
heating system Tube-in-sheet type water antifreeze mixture

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7
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8 The progress of solar water heating system shows that the market is under fast lane recently and the
9 technology is relatively mature. The evacuated tube solar collector has higher market share and will still
10 dominate the market in near future. For the different types of solar water heating system, detailed selection
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11 depends on different locations and country policy. Although solar heating only take small share of the building
12 heating demand now, with development of the solar thermal technologies, solar heating will become a vital
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13 contributor in future.
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15 2.2 Solar space heating

16 In addition to solar hot water, space heating also can be realized by solar energy. Solar space heating system,
17 usually combined with solar water heating is starting to put in use. It also can be distinguished as passive solar
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18 space heating and active systems.

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20 2.2.1 Passive solar space heating system
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21 Passive solar space heating is realized primaryly based on building or component design with no solar
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22 collector. This concept has been proposed since 1986s and Trombe wall is widely recognized as the first
23 example. Chan et al. [22] concluded the development of passive solar space heating including solar wall, solar
24 chemistry, solar façade and solar roof are the main types of such systems. It can be seen that pass solar space
25 heating system is realized by cooperating with civil design. Meanwhile the heating effect is still limited.
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27 2.2.2 Active solar space heating system
28 Active solar space heating system uses solar air collector to produce hot air or solar water collector to heat up
29 indoor air indirectly. Compared with solar water heating system for domestic hot water alone, the thermal
30 demand of space heating requires significantly larger area of solar collector. Consequently, how to integrate large
31 areas of solar collectors into the building envelop becomes the major research work [23-30].
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1 Roof integration is the most common way of solar collector integration, as shown in Fig.6. Roof always has
2 an inclination angle which naturally provides the required installation angel for solar collector. However, for
3 roof-integrated collector, the wind force has to be taken into account when designing and installing the
4 supporting structure, and distance between two rows of collectors on flat-roof needs to be calculated to prevent
5 one row of collectors shading against another. Balcony integration is another usual way, especially for high-rise
6 residential buildings without enough roof space. Existing examples already prove the satisfied performance and
7 significant economic benefit. For buildings with awnings, since the structure of the solar collector is

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8 water-proofing, it is also an alternative to the conventional awning, as shown in Fig.13. Besides, façade collector
9 mounted directly to the wall is also a potential way of solar collector integration. Taken as s part of the outer shell
10 of the building, the solar collector can improve heat insulation and weather protection for the facade.

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12 (a) (b)
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15 Fig. 6 (a) Roof (b) Balcony (c) Awning (d) Wall [30] integration of solar collectors
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17 As mentioned above, the energy supply of solar heat is unstable and inconsistent, thus back-up sources are
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18 required to ensure smooth operation of solar space heating system. Fig.7 shows the schematic diagram of solar
19 thermal system in combination with CO2 heat pump for residential space heating [31]. For this solar
20 combi-system, the CO2 heat pump accounts for 28.9% of the total thermal supply with an average COP of 2.55,
21 and simplified solar fraction is 71.1% for the entire heating season. Compared with the CO2 heat pump heating
22 system, the solar combi-system can save 53.6% of the electricity consumption.
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2 Fig. 7 Diagram of proposed solar combined system with CO2 HP [32]
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4 2.3 Possible future development on solar heating system
5 2.3.1 Large scale district solar heating system
6 For an individual solar water/space heating system as shown in Fig.8, heat gathered by user-owned collectors

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7 is stored in individual hot water tank for individual utilization. While for large scale district solar heating system,
8 large-area collectors are integrated together as field to supply heat for a district hot water network. Compared to
9 individual solar heating system, the cost of large scale district solar heating system can be reduced greatly thus

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10 recognized as one possible development direction for solar heating system.
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11 There are two main categories of district heating system, one is central system and another is
12 central-individual system. As shown in Fig.9, in central district heating system, the collector field is connected to
13 lots of individual storage tanks which are used by individual users. In a central-individual system as shown in
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14 Fig.10, a shared large central storage tank supplies hot water to individual users. In sum, the large scale district
15 heating system gathers heat by the central solar collectors and distributes to individual users by heating networks.
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16 Meanwhile, seasonal storage equipment has been applied in large-scale district solar heating system in a number
17 of cases, this system charges with solar heat during summer/autumn season and discharges in winter.
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18 Most of successfully demonstrated large scale district solar heating systems are installed in Europe. About
19 twenty years ago, Fisch et al. [32] summarized the existing plants in six locations and pointed out that systems
20 with seasonal storage are the most interesting applications regarding replacing fossil fuels and CO2 reduction,
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21 and related technologies will guarantee further development and application of large scale solar heating. Now
22 large scale solar district heating systems with collector areas from 1000 to 37000m2 and seasonal heat stores with
23 a water equivalent storage volume of 3000 m3 to 61000m3 provide up to 50% of the heating and hot water
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24 demand of large building complexes and towns [33]. In Europe, an increasing number of large scale heating
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25 systems have been deployed for district heating grids. By the end of 2015, Europe was home to 252 large scale
26 systems with a total of 745 MWth, 36% of which are connected to district heating systems [1]. However only
27 one percent of the worldwide installed solar collector surface is currently connected to district heating systems,
28 due to the merit of low cost large scale district solar heating is likely to take more market in future.
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Heat storage water tank
Set pressure tank Air outlet valve

Hot water

Main-water Roof of building

Solar collecting pump

Set pressure tank

Solar collecting pump Heat storage water tank

Water tank space / attic

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Solar collectors Balcony

To users
Main-water Hot water

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Fig. 8 individual water heating system Fig. 9 central water heating system

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Air outlet valve

Roof of building

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Heat storage water tank
Set pressure tank
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Hot water pump

Solar collecting pump Water tank space / attic

To users

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2 Fig. 10 central-individual water heating system
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4 2.3.2 Solar PVT system
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5 For solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, one of the major issues is currently only 15-20% of the solar energy
6 incident on a PV panel can be converted to electricity, with the rest being transformed into heat [34], this part of
7 thermal energy can be effectively reutilized to produce heating effect. The hybrid solar photovoltaic and thermal
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8 (PVT) is technology developed accordingly which integrates the PV panels and heat extraction components into
9 a single module [35]. This concept was originally proposed by Kern and Russell [43] for near three decades and
10 now has been widely investigated [36]. Although most of researches concentrate on the efficiency improvement
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11 of PV system, PVT system provides an alternative solution for provide solar heating effect.
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12 Furushima et al. [37] developed a PVT system as shown in Fig.11 and long-term performance was tested in a
13 real environment. Results show that 45-50oC hot water can be produced under experimental conditions. Some
14 system directly adopts forced air circulation to cool the PV panel and produces hot air for space heating [38-41]
15 (Fig.12). The dynamic thermal model of a building with an integrated ventilated PV façade and solar air
16 collector system has been developed based on the TRNSYS program and validated by experimental
17 measurement [38]. Numerical approach for ventilated PV facade has been developed to examine the heat
18 transfer processes [39-41]. Air is preheated in this facade gap and circulated into ventilation system for space
19 heating in winter, making room temperature close to 25 °C without additional heating so that 12% of the heating
20 load can be reduced. While in summer, the air in channel is transferred outside by ventilator so that the peak
21 room temperature is about 30 °C without air conditioning.
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1 Thermal efficiency of PVT system is lower compared with other solar heating technologies because of
2 co-produced electricity; however, this system is beneficial in the fact that both heating effect and electricity can
3 be produced. Also, PV system obtains improved performance with use of PVT.
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Fig. 11 Schematic of the PV cooling system: the side view Fig. 12 Schematic of air cooled PV system [38]
of the PV array [37]
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6 3. Solar cooling
7 Solar energy can not only be directly adopted in heating but also utilized to produce cooling power. Compared
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8 with solar heating system, the solar irradiation energy has better fit with the required cooling power in cooling
9 system. For instance more cooling power is required when solar energy is abundant at outdoor. Both solar
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10 thermal energy and electricity produced by solar PV can be used to power different cooling system. It should be
11 noted during the season when air condition is not required, heat or electricity produced by the collector or PV
12 can be adopted to supply hot water or to power other electric equipment.
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14 3.1 Solar thermal cooling
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15 Solar thermal energy is transferred to cooling power operating on adsorption/absorption principle with use of
16 different adsorption/sorption working pair. Cooling power is produced by evaporation refrigeration of working
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17 substance under relatively low pressure, and solar thermal energy is adopted to realize regeneration of
18 adsorbent/sorbent. Schematic figure of solar thermal cooling technology is plotted in Fig.13. For adsorption
19 cooling system, the common working pairs are water-zeolite, water-silica gel, ammonia-CaCl2, etc. The required
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20 regeneration temperature is from 60 to 120oC and the corresponding COP is about 0.3-0.6. For absorption
21 cooling system, the common working pairs are water-LiBr and ammonia-water. The efficiencies of the simplest
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22 single stage sorption systems are about 0.5-0.8. The most popular candidate for solar cooling is single-effect
23 water-LiBr absorption chiller with COP around 0.7 under driving temperature, ambient temperature and
24 evaporation temperature of 90oC, 30oC and 5oC respectively. Higher COP can be reached with double-effect
25 cycle which also requires higher driving temperature like 140oC. To improve the performance of solar thermal
26 cooling system, some novel concepts are proposed and they provide good alternative for future market.
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3 Fig. 13 Schematic figure of solar thermal cooling technology
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5 3.1.1 Modular silica gel-water adsorption chiller
6 Silica gel-water is one of the most widely studied and used working pair of adsorption refrigeration. The

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7 silica gel-water adsorption chiller can produce chilled water for air-conditioning when powered by heat source of
8 below 100oC which well match the working temperature of conventional solar collector. The first commercial
9 product of silica gel-water adsorption refrigeration was invented in 1980s and used up until now. However, the

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10 shortcomings of the existing silica gel-water adsorption chillers like size, low efficiency and high cost limit the
11 wide application. As a result the further development of silica gel-water adsorption chiller concentrates on
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12 improving efficiency and decreasing size as well as cost.
13 Pan et al. [42] proposed a modular silica gel-water adsorption chiller with heat and mass recovery processes,
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14 aiming to resolve the existing problems of silica gel-water adsorption chiller. As shown in Fig.14, the adsorption
15 bed is optimized with a modular design. Modular compact adsorption bed is consist of 19 small fin-tube units
16 defined as standard components. The scales of adsorption chiller depend on the quantity of this standard units
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17 and the redundant design work is unnecessary. Besides this standard unit can meet the demand of large scale
18 production and cost can be dramatically reduced. Another benefit of modular adsorption bed is less use of metal
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19 materials due to simple structure, resulting less heat loss in adsorption/desorption switch and higher efficiency of
20 the whole chiller. Using modular adsorption beds, the authors built and experimentally studied a modular silica
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21 gel-water adsorption chiller without any vacuum valves as shown in Fig.18. The obtained cooling power, COP
22 and SCP are 42.8 kW, 0.51 and 125.0 W/kg, respectively, under typical conditions of 86/30/11 °C hot water
23 inlet/cooling water inlet/chilled water outlet temperatures, respectively. Besides the performance of modular
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24 silica gel-water adsorption chiller is much better than other silica gel-water adsorption chillers reported in the
25 previous articles.
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27 Fig.14 Modular adsorption bed [42] Fig.15 CaCl2/AC-ammonia adsorption refrigerator [45]

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1
2 3.1.2 CaCl2/AC-ammonia adsorption refrigerator
3 The evaporating temperature of ammonia can be equal to or below 0oC so that it is suitable for solar adsorption
4 cooling system used in cold stage or freezing cases. In initial research the single adsorbent, such as AC and CaCl2,
5 was used in ammonia adsorption refrigeration system. AC as a physical adsorbent has the disadvantage of low
6 adsorption quantity so that huge mass of adsorbent need to be used in real system. Though CaCl2 as a chemical
7 adsorbent has the ability to uptake more ammonia, the agglomeration and expansion issues restrict its application.

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8 To overcome the shortcomings of separate physical and chemical adsorbents, composite adsorbent is developed
9 and widely studied. In composite adsorbent, the porous physical adsorbent provides suitable space for expansion
10 of chemical adsorbent and prevents agglomeration. Meanwhile, chemical adsorbent improves the adsorption

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11 capacity compared with single physical one. CaCl2/AC is a competitive composite adsorbent for solar cooling
12 market because of its low price.

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13 Lu et al. [43, 44] developed two CaCl2/AC-ammonia multifunctional heat pipe adsorption refrigerators with
14 heat and mass recovery processes. Pan et al [45] recently developed a CaCl2/AC-ammonia adsorption
15 refrigerator with mass recovery process as shown in Fig.15. Unlike conventional refrigerator, mass recovery

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16 process of this novel refrigerator is between the two evaporators, beneficial for the ammonia balance of two
17 adsorption beds. Experimental results show that under the conditions of -5oC evaporating temperature, 130oC
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18 driving temperature and 25oC cooling water temperature, the optimal COP, SCP and cooling capacity are 0.197,
19 205.2 W/kg and 1.64 kW, respectively. The future trend of CaCl2/AC-ammonia adsorption refrigeration should
20 concentrate on application of novel design, improvement of manufacture and development of market.
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22 3.1.3 Single /double effect LiBr-water absorption chiller
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23 Absorption cooling systems utilize both gas burner and solar collector as heat source. The gas driven
24 absorption cooling can work in the double effect configuration with high efficiency. It is stable however with
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25 high gas consumption. The solar hot water driven absorption cooling usually adopt single effect configuration. It
26 is clean and energy saving but hard to run continuously. A novel LiBr-water absorption chiller driven by both gas
27 firing and solar hot water is introduced. The chiller combines both single effect solar absorption cooling and
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28 double effect gas fired absorption cooling. The solar driven part of the chiller works first. The gas fired part of
29 the chiller is activated when the solar hot water temperature is not high enough or the cooling output is
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30 insufficient. In this way, the utilizations of both heat sources can be optimized.
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32 Fig. 16 Schematic diagram of the single /double effect LiBr-water absorption chiller [46]
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1 Construction of this single /double effect LiBr-water absorption chiller is shown in Fig.16 [46]. Among the
2 three generators, the high pressure generator (1) and low pressure generator (3) work for double effect absorption
3 refrigeration. The low pressure generator (2) is for the single effect absorption refrigeration. The absorber is
4 separated as left and right parts with the evaporator in the middle. The design intends to reduce cooling power
5 loss of the evaporator. The three-generator configuration is key design of the chiller. It makes the chiller work in
6 single effect solar absorption cooling condition and double effect gas fired absorption cooling condition either
7 independently or simultaneously. Besides, the two low pressure generators are put in the same chamber. The

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8 generator (2) for single effect absorption refrigeration is a falling film generator on the top. The low pressure
9 generator (3) for the double effect absorption refrigeration is a submerged generator on the bottom. Usually the
10 solar hot water has lower temperature than the condensation heat of high pressure steam. The positions of two

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11 low pressure generators will ensure the weak solution flows from the low temperature part to the high one,
12 which can make full use of heat sources.

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13 A practical hybrid solar and gas powered single /double effect LiBr-water absorption chiller was tested. The
14 operation data were tested under typical working condition in summer, the average flow rates for cooling water
15 and chilled water were 210.88m3/h and 136.05m3/h respectively. The COP for solar cooling was 0.5~0.6 while

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16 the COP for gas fired cooling was 0.7~0.9 based on the results. The experimental study of this chiller proves the
17 effectiveness of solar and gas driven single/double effect absorption chiller. Solar driven single effect absorption
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18 refrigeration reduces the gas consumption and gas driven double effect absorption refrigeration both ensures the
19 continuous operation and makes full use of the gas burning. It is a practical and high efficient option for solar
20 absorption cooling.
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22 3.1.4 Variable effect LiBr-water absorption chiller
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23 The commonly used solar water-LiBr absorption cooling technologies include the single-effect and
24 double-effect water-LiBr absorption chillers. They have COP about 0.72 and 1.2 under driving temperature
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25 around 85oC and 140oC respectively. However the chillers are not flexible under variable driving temperature:
26 their COPs and driving temperatures are limited in small range. In the case of solar absorption cooling system,
27 solar heat source is not stable and has variable temperature during daytime. Mismatch of stability between the
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28 solar heat power and absorption chiller decreases the system efficiency and working time. Usually the solar
29 collector provides higher temperature of heat source in noon time than morning or evening time. If the solar
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30 collector offers heat source with temperature just enough to activate the absorption chiller around noon time, the
31 working period will be short. If the solar collector offers heat source with temperature enough to activate the
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32 absorption chiller in morning time, the working period can be ensured. However the heat source temperature in
33 the noon will be higher than the need of chiller, there will be waste of energy grade.
34 To make better use of the solar heat source with variable temperature, a variable effect absorption
35 refrigeration cycle which varies its COP with the driven temperature should be proposed [47]. Fig.17 shows a
36 possible configuration of the 1.n effect absorption refrigeration cycle with photo of prototype. In this cycle, part
37 of vapor generated by the HG is absorbed by the solution in HA. The other part of the vapor condenses in the
38 HC. Solutions in HA absorbs the vapor and releases absorption heat to LG2. The absorption heat is enough to
39 drive the generation in LG2. HC releases condensation heat and drives the generation in LG1. The vapor
40 absorbed in HA obtains single effect refrigeration. The vapor condenses in HC obtains double effect refrigeration.

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1 The ratio of vapor obtaining single effect and double effect refrigeration can be adjusted according to the
2 generation temperature, and this cycle is called the variable effect or 1.n effect absorption cycle.
3

high pressure generator (HG) high pressure absorber (HA)

high pressure condenser(HC) low pressure generator 1(LG1)
low pressure generator 2 (LG2) condenser (C)
low pressure absorber (LA) evaporator (E)
solution heat exchanger (SHX)

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(a)
Fig. 17 The variable effect absorption cycle (a) Schematic diagram [47]
4

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5 A prototype of variable effect water-LiBr absorption chiller was built according to the proposed cycle. The
6 designed parameter was 50kW of cooling output at generation temperature of 125oC. Normal heat exchangers of
7 shell-tube type were adopted. Falling film configuration of the heat exchangers was used to decrease the
8

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temperature approaches. It is found that system COP rises from 0.69 to 1.08 when generation temperature rises
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9 from 95oC to 120oC [48]. The experiment also indicates the variable COP with generation temperature can be
10 reached with this 1.n effect absorption chiller, a good choice for high efficient solar absorption cooling.
11 Considering that there are no specific designed components, it is able to be manufactured without adding extra
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12 cost compared with single or double effect absorption chillers.

13
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14 3.1.5 Ammonia water absorption ice-maker with better internal heat recovery
15
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17 Fig.18 Schematic figure of ammonia water absorption ice-maker with better internal heat recovery
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19 Ammonia water absorption refrigeration system has advantage in producing cooling effect below 0oC
20 compared to LiBr-H2O absorption systems. However the low performance and large bulk are the drawbacks
21 which hinder the further applications. Therefore it is necessary to develop an advanced system without the
22 problems highlighted. Better internal heat recovery is significantly important for the system performance

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1 improvement. And high specific surface area heat exchanger is effective to reduce the bulk of the components
2 thus the size could be decreased. An advanced ammonia water absorption system has been developed based on
3 the authors’ analysis of internal heat recovery to achieve the two targets [49, 50]. It is not only applicable for
4 solar applications but also for other heat sources such as engine exhaust waste heat. Fig.18 shows the schematic
5 of the system.
6 The distillation column, absorber and condenser in a conventional system are replaced by the separation unit
7 and the condensation-absorption unit in the new system. In the condensation-absorption unit, a small diameter

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8 tube bundle heat exchanger is put in the top of a cylinder. The vapor leaving the separation unit is condensed
9 inside the heat exchanger. And the condensation heat is removed by the circular pre-cooled ammonia water
10 solution which is sprinkled on the surface of the heat exchanger. Meanwhile absorption occurs and a set of

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11 packing is installed below the condenser for further absorption and the absorption heat is also taken away by the
12 circular pre-cooled solution circulated by a shield pump. After the absorption process, the strong solution from

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13 the reservoir is mixed with the weak solution from the solution heat exchanger. And the mixed solution flows to
14 the plate heat exchanger where the condensation and absorption heat is finally released by cooling water. The
15 circulating strong solution of the system is transferred by a diaphragm pump. And it flows to the separation unit

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16 to recover the rectification heat first. Then the strong solution is divided into two branches. One is to feed after a
17 heat exchange with the weak solution in the solution heat exchanger. And the other is to recover the rest
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18 rectification heat following to extract heat from the exhaust after a preheating in the reservoir of the separation
19 unit. After that it is fully gasified in the exhaust heat exchanger and flows upward in the tubes in the separation
20 unit with releasing heat to the falling solution on the surface of the tubes for generation. The vapor in the tubes is
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21 gradually liquefied as rising and fed ultimately with other branches of the strong solution from the solution heat
22 exchanger. The vapor leaving the separation unit is condensed and the condensate is throttled to produce cooling
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23 effect after a pre-cooling of the vapor from the evaporator which flows to the condensation-absorption unit to be
24 absorbed. So far the cycle is closed.
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25 An experimental prototype is built up to obtain system performance, results showed that the prototype
26 produces cooling capacity between 25.6 and 30.5 kW while the thermal COP is between 0.5 and 0.56 with
27 generation temperature of about 180oC. Although the experimental test was conducted under the condition of
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28 exhaust heat utilization, it is feasible to use medium solar collector for solar refrigeration with high efficiency.
29 Table 3 summarizes the performance of present solar collector and solar thermal cooling technologies, it
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30 should be noted that the COP described in the table means the thermal COP (cooling power divided by solar
31 thermal input), for practical solar system, solar COP should be calculated based on the efficiency of solar
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32 collector multiplying thermal COP.

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34 Table 3 Performance review of solar thermal cooling system
35
Temperature Efficiency
Solar Flat-plate collector 30–80 °C 40–80%
Collector
for Evacuated-tube collector 30–80 °C 60–75%
Cooling Compound parabolic collectors 30–150 °C 45–75%
System
PV/T 30–60 °C 50–70%
Driven Temperature Thermal COP
Conventional Adsorption water-silica gel 60-100 oC 0.3-0.6

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cooling chiller water-zeolite 150-250 oC 0.2-0.4
system ammonia-CaCl2 100-150 oC 0.2-0.4
Absorption Single stage ammonia-water 90-120 oC 0.4-0.6
chiller Single effect LiBr-water 80-100 oC 0.6-0.7
Double effect LiBr-water 140-160 oC 1.0-1.2
Triple effect LiBr-water 180-220 oC 1.3-1.7
Recent Modular silica gel-water adsorption chiller with 86 oC 0.51
developed heat and mass recovery
cooling CaCl2/AC-ammonia adsorption refrigerator 130 oC 0.197
system Single /double effect LiBr-water absorption Solar: 70-90 oC COP for solar cooling: 0.5~0.6
chiller Gas fire: 80-150 oC COP for gas fired cooling: 0.7~0.9

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Variable effect LiBr-water absorption chiller 95-120 oC 0.69-1.08
Ammonia water absorption ice-maker with 160 oC 0.5-0.56
better internal heat recovery
1

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2 3.2 Solar PV cooling
3 It is called solar PV cooling when electricity produced by photovoltaic (PV) system is used to power a
4 conventional vapor compression refrigeration cycle, which has been proposed for several decades. Solar PV

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5 cooling was limited by low PV efficiency and high initial investment and its application has been ignored until
6 recent years [51-55]. Because of the sharp fall down of PV module price, the initial investment of PV air

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7 conditioner (PVAC) decreased as well, advantages of PVAC stand out among different kinds of solar cooling
8 and more attention has been paid to PVAC. Some experimental results and practical data proved that PVAC has
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9 the merits of high performance, electricity saving, stable and reliable operation [56, 57]. Considering both the
10 massive cooling market and the potential PV market, PVAC is likely to attract more and more attention in future.
11 In theory, all vapor compression air conditioners powered by electricity can be modified into PVACs, and
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12 there exist several different criteria to categorize PVAC. For example, according to different categories of air
13 conditioners, PVAC can be divided into different types to meet different demands including small PVAC for
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14 room (e.g., split room PVAC), small central PVAC (e.g., variable refrigerant flow PVAC), and large central
15 PVAC for commercial use (e.g., centrifugal PV chiller). However if based on PV connection with the grid, the
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16 PVAC can be divided into two types: the stand-alone (or off-grid) and the grid-connected PVAC. The
17 stand-alone PVAC is powered only by PV system with a set of batteries. It is very suitable for remote villages
18 where the grid is not available. The grid-connected PVAC is connected with the grid and powered by both the
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19 PV system and the grid. For grid-connected PVAC, the grid acts as backup. The residual power from PV system
20 can be sent to the grid when the PV power is more than what unit needs, and also the power can be drawn from
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21 the grid to meet the gap when the PV power is less than. Also according to the direct current (DC) or alternating
22 current (AC) which is used to power the air conditioner, the PVAC can be divided into two types: DC driven
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23 PVAC and AC driven PVAC. AC driven PVAC can be built based on the common air conditioner by adding the
24 PV system, control system and an inverter [57]. However, DC driven PVAC is designed to utilize the DC
25 electricity directly generated by PV system without the converting process from DC to AC. Thus the system is
26 simplified and energy efficiency is improved.
27 As mentioned previously, more and more researches are conducted with decreasing PV module price. The
28 preliminary researches mainly focused on economic feasibility, modeling and experiment on operation. Many
29 researchers have compared the PVAC with other solar cooling technologies, or even with the traditional AC,
30 from the aspects of initial investments [55, 58], collector area [52, 59], environmental influences [52, 60]. From
31 different aspect, the PVAC stands out among all the solar cooling technologies. Some researchers also carried

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1 out simulation or experiments to show the operation characteristics of PVAC for residential or commercial
2 buildings [56, 57, 59, 61]. Results showed a stable and reliable performance of PVAC.
3 The DC driven PVAC is commercialized recently by some companies in China and has been applied in many
4 cases. The Gree PV direct-driven inverter centrifugal chiller as shown in Fig.19 [61] is used as example. It is
5 installed in an office building with a cooling load of 2790 kW in Zhuhai (22oN, 113oE), China. The PV array is
6 installed at a tilt angle of 20o and azimuth of 0o, with a nominal PV power of 390.5kWp. The characteristic
7 parameters for the commercial poly-crystalline PV module are listed in Table 3. During the cooling season from

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8 May to October, the monthly energy generation by PV system and power consumption by the chiller are tested.
9 It is found that the total energy generation is 179MWh, which is 26.95% higher than the total energy
10 consumption (141MWh), meaning the system provides “free” cooling for the building.

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11

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12
13 Fig. 19 PVAC works in the PVAC & power consumption mode [61]
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15 Since the electricity price of large scale commercial building is much higher than domestic one, it is relatively
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16 more economically beneficial to install PV panel in commercial building with better future. It is suggested that
17 following developments are necessary to complete. First the stable and efficient energy control strategies for
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18 PVAC are essential to realize its complex functions and improve energy efficiency. The PV power generation is
19 changing fast due to the transient characteristics of solar radiation, and the power drawing from the grid or
20 feeding in to the grid varies greatly. The corresponding control strategy is required to manage this process and to
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21 keep the energy in dynamic balance. Besides to obtain the maximum economic benefit, the control strategy is
22 needed to determine that the PV power is consumed only by PVAC or is sent to the grid according to the
23 electricity price variation. Also air conditioner is the main energy-consuming equipment in buildings. Smart
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24 control strategy should be able to record and analyze the energy consumption in buildings and then helps make
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25 more energy-saving decisions. Then subsidy policy for PVAC should be carried out. Most part of the PV power
26 is directly utilized within the PVAC and thus cannot be sold to the grid at a high price, which is different from
27 PV power station. So the subsidy policy for PVAC should be designed to make sure that the PV system in
28 PVAC can get the same subsidy as PV power station. Last but not least, software to design and optimize PVAC
29 is important for its widespread applications. It should also be able to demonstrate the power generation and
30 consumption conditions, the PV pay-back time and system efficiency.
31
32 4. Economic analysis on solar heating and cooling system
33 Solar energy as one of free renewable energy can greatly reduce the operation cost, but its initial cost in
34 installation is higher than conventional fossil fuel driven heating/cooling system as well as high labor cost.
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1 Therefore, in addition to technical analysis, economic feasibility has to be taken into account for adoption and
2 development of practical solar heating and cooling system.
3
4 4.1 Economic analysis on solar heating
5 Considering the high initial cost and low operation cost, economic analysis on solar heating system mainly
6 uses return of investment as the main index. Several researchers investigated return of investment on different
7 types of solar heating system and some representative ones are summarized in Table 4. One of the main reason

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8 that cause high initial cost of solar heating system is the utilization of copper, Nahar et el. [62] conducted a
9 comparison between different solar heating systems adopting galvanized steel-aluminium fin (GS-Al),
10 copper-aluminum fin (Cu-Al) and copper-copper fin (Cu-Cu) as flat plate collectors. It is found that

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11 thermophysical performance of these solar heating systems are similar, but the total cost of system with GS-Al
12 fin is the lowest with payback period from 2.92 to 4.53 years. To realize more accurate economic analysis of

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13 solar water heater, Pan et al. [63] proposed the effective solar radiation (ESR) and effective solar days methods
14 replacing conventional total annual solar radiation method which overestimates the energy production of an
15 SWH. Research results show that the payback period is from 6 to15 years for different regions and heater types.

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16 Meanwhile the payback period can further decreases if higher subsidies and incentive obtained. Abd-ur-Rehman
17 et al. [64] evaluated the optimum selection criteria of solar water heating system based on different climatic
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18 conditions and different number of occupants for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). In the ten different
19 representative cities in Saudi Arabia, the payback period ranges from 3 to 10 years and the benefit to cost ratio
20 varies from 1.2 to 3.0 using evacuated tube solar collectors. It is also shown that with the number of occupants
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21 increasing, the payback period decreases and the benefit to cost ratio increases simultaneously. Gastli et al. [65]
22 proposed using RETScreen to evaluate financial feasibility of solar water heater in Oman. It is shown that annual
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23 energy saving for Seeb district is about 335431MWh when existing electric water heaters are replaced with solar
24 water heaters. With 50% sharing of capital cost between household owners and Government, the payback period
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25 is between 7 and 10 years. Both householders and government can benefit from the investment. Besides
26 domestic solar water heater system has great contribution to reduce emission and create additional employment.
27 Life cycle analysis is also used to analyze economic performance of solar heating system. Hang et al. [66]
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28 investigated the impacts of the life-cycle energetic, economic and environmental on different types of water
29 heating systems. By comparing life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost (LCC), it shows that flat-plate
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30 solar collector water heating system with natural gas is the best choice.
31 Voivontas et al. [67] considered the effect of specific geographical characteristics on economic performance of
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32 solar heating water system. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) method was developed to estimate solar
33 energy and market potential for water heating with the geographic distribution of solar radiation being taken into
34 consideration. One case study shows the current energy savings can reach about 1200 GW-h yr−1 when solar
35 water heating system has 2×106 m2 collector area.
36
37 4.2 Economic analysis on solar cooling
38 There is less economic study on solar cooling system. Papoutsis et al. [68] evaluated the performance of three
39 different solar cooling systems: solar thermal cooling system, solar electrical cooling system, solar PVT cooling
40 system. Based on mathematical modeling analysis, it was found that the mono-Si solar cooling system has the

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1 maximum solar COP of about 0.47 in May and the simple flat plate collector’s system has the minimum solar
2 COP of about 0.13 in August. The payback period of all type solar cooling systems varies from 7.6 to 11.4 years.
3 The solar thermal cooling system with the advanced flat plate collectors has the minimum payback period. Jafari
4 et al. [69] proposes a new solar system composed of three cooling plates, a solar chimney and a cooling channel
5 for passive cooling of buildings. The theoretical and simulative analysis proved that the proposed system saves
6 about 37% less electric energy compared with conventional air conditioner system with same cooling power.
7 With theoretical calculation based on the existing data required, Otanicar et al. [70] pointed out that cost of solar

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8 thermal cooling is not competitive with that of solar electric cooling until 2030, and then solar electric system is a
9 more economical choice right now.
10 Table 4 shows the brief conclusion of economic analysis related to solar heating and cooling system, it can be

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11 found that payback period of high initial cost is the widely adopted evaluation index, which varies from 3 to 15
12 years with respect to different components such as collector types and metal materials, different locations and

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13 different subsidy polices. As a summary, low initial cost and advantageous allowance can make solar heating
14 and cooling system more economically attractive.
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16 Table 4 Review on economic analysis of solar heating and cooling system
Solar Reference Method Location Results
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heating [62] Under sub equal overall efficiency, India Payback period from 2.92 years to 4.53
system contrast the total cost of the two heaters years
[63] Effective solar radiation (ESR) and Taiwan For different regions and heater types, the
effective solar days payback periods vary from 6 years to15
years.
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[64] Simulation method based on the Saudi Arabia The payback period varies from 3 years to
RETScreen Software 10 years with using evacuated tube
collectors in SWHS.
[65] The RETScreen Software Solar Water Oman The simple payback period is between 7 to
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Heating Project Model 10 years

[66] Life cycle assessment and life cycle cost United States FPC&NGSWHS is a best choice for
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SWHS.
[67] Geographic Information Systems(GIS) Greece The current energy savings can reach
technology about 1200 GW-h yr−1 with 2×106 m2
collector area of domestic water heating
systems.
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Solar [68] Mathematical modeling Greece The solar thermal cooling system driven
cooling by the advanced flat plate thermal
system collectors has the shorter payback period
for 7.6 years.
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[69] Simulation analysis Iran The use of electric energy decreases by

37%.
[70] Theoretical calculation United States The capital investment for solar electric
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cooling will be the lowest in 2030.

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18 5. Conclusions
19 Energy consumption of air conditioning accounts for large part in whole system, then solar heating and
20 cooling technology develops fast in past decades to alleviate reliance on fossil fuel and to also reduce pollution.
21 This paper tries to summarize the newest development in related areas and to point out potential development
22 direction. The detailed comments are summarized as following:
23 1) Solar water heating is still the most widely adopted solar heating technology and its capacity is
24 growing quickly with vacuum tube type solar collector dominates the market. Also the combination of
25 solar heating and heat pump technology has been proposed to ensure the continuous and stable
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1 operation of solar thermal system and to improve COP of heat pump system, and this type of system
2 has been advocated in several countries especially in Germany. Solar building air heating always
3 requires much larger size of solar collector and then how to integrate solar collecting system with
4 building is very hot in current research; balcony and awning are present solution methods.
5 Large-scale district solar water heating system with much lower cost is likely to be a proposing
6 development aspect, and different modes should be considered based on different user types. Similar
7 to solar water heating, large-scale district heating and combined system with backup for intermitted

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8 solar energy obtain more and more attention these years. Especially for Europe, an increasing number
9 of large-scale solar heating systems have been deployed for district heating grids. There are also some
10 work related to solar PVT system, which obtains lots of attention because it realizes optimal utilization

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11 of both electricity and released thermal energy. Different methods such as thermal water system,
12 forced air circulation have been proposed to reach high energy efficiency.

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13 2) To improve the performance of solar thermal cooling system, some novel concepts are proposed and
14 they provide good alternative for future development. For solar adsorption chiller: commonly adopted
15 silica gel water adsorption chiller, modular system with heat and mass recovery processes has been

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16 proposed with improved performance; a novel CaCl2/AC-ammonia adsorption refrigerator with mass
17 recovery process is between the two evaporators is also developed to realize the ammonia balance of
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18 two adsorption beds. The future trend of CaCl2/AC-ammonia adsorption refrigeration should
19 concentrate on application of novel design, improvement of manufacture and market development.
20 For solar absorption chiller: a series of new concepts including single /double effect LiBr-water
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21 absorption chiller, 1.n effect LiBr-water (Variable effect) absorption chiller and ammonia water
22 absorption ice-maker with better internal heat recovery have been proposed and investigated. These
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23 novel systems uses optimized system configuration to realize better balance between solar thermal
24 energy input and cooling output, which provide more choices for future market.
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25 Solar PV air conditioning system gradually becomes competitive with the sharp fall of PV module
26 price. In such system, electricity instead of thermal energy is adopted to drive the operation. Then,
27 research and development of solar PVAC mainly concentrate on the efficient link between PV and AC,
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28 and smart control of the entire system.

29 3) In addition to technical development, economic analysis is crucial for installation of practical solar
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30 heating and cooling system. Solar system has the merit of low operation cost using free renewable
31 energy but high initial cost, and then payback period is widely adopted to evaluate its economic
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32 performance. Numerous researches show that payback period of solar heating and cooling system lies
33 in the range of 3-15 years, which is highly related to the types of components, geographic location and
34 subsidy from different government. Low initial cost and advantageous allowance are the most efficient
35 ways to make solar heating and cooling system economically attractive.
36
37 Acknowledgement
38 This work was supported by the Foundation for Innovative Research Groups of the National Natural Science
39 Foundation of China (Grant No. 51521004).
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