Monday, October 4, 2010

Solar Air Conditioning – How Solar Air Conditioning Works?

Before talking about how solar air conditioning and solar cooling works, one must have some basic information about passive solar water heating. The passive solar water heating basically uses a pump for circulating heated liquid in solar collectors. The heated liquid is then used for solar air conditioning and cooling using Lithium Bromide (Li-Br) absorption chillers.

To make it easy on you to understand how solar air conditioning and cooling works, an illustrative diagram is shown below to explain the process for passive solar water heating. An explanation will follow on how to get solar air conditioning results. i.e., Absorption chillers use heat for cooling.
Passive Solar Water Heating - Forced Circulation
The diagram above shows a passive (forced circulation) system that uses a number of solar collector plates (or can be vacuum tubes) to harvest free energy from sun rays.

A liquid absorbent (Glycol or water) transfers heat from the solar thermal collector panels. A pump forces