Applied Energy 88 (2011) 14471454

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Experimental diagnosis of the inuence of operational variables on the

performance of a solar absorption cooling system
M. Venegas a,, M.C. Rodrguez-Hidalgo a, R. Salgado b, A. Lecuona a, P. Rodrguez a, G. Gutirrez a
a
b

Dpto. Ingeniera Trmica y de Fluidos, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Avda. Universidad 30, 28911 Legans, Madrid, Spain
Dpto. Ingeniera Mecnica, Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Bayamn, 500 Carretera Dr. John Will Harris Bayamn, PR 00957-6257, United States

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 28 July 2010
Received in revised form 6 October 2010
Accepted 6 October 2010
Available online 30 October 2010
Keywords:
Solar cooling
Weather variables
Statistical analysis
Absorption
Flat plate collectors

a b s t r a c t
This paper presents the analysis of the performance of a solar cooling facility along one summer season
using a commercial single-effect waterlithium bromide absorption chiller aiming at domestic applications. The facility works only with solar energy using at plate collectors and it is located at Universidad
Carlos III de Madrid, Spain. The statistical analysis performed with the gathered data shows the inuence
of ve daily operational variables on the system performance. These variables are solar energy received
along the day (H) and the average values, along the operating period of the solar cooling facility (from
sunrise to the end of the cold-water production), of the ambient temperature (T), the wind velocity magnitude (V), the wind direction (h) and the relative humidity (RH). First order correlation functions are
given. The analysis of the data allows concluding that the most inuential variables on the daily cooling
energy produced and the daily averaged solar COP are H, V and h. The period length of cold-water production is determined mainly by H and T.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Increasing the use of renewable energy resources is one of the
societys main targets nowadays and it will be in the foreseeable
near future. Absorption-cooling machines are employed broadly
worldwide when solar thermal energy is used for air-conditioning
purposes [1]. Mugnier and Quinette [2] presented a methodology
based on a checklist for the correct integration of a solar cooling
system in buildings. The checklist is based on the feedback of European solar cooling experiences in the framework of the IEA Task 25.
IEA Task 38 is still improving the dissemination of the state of the
art, evaluation procedures and overview of this sector [3].
The most common working uids used in absorption machines
are H2OLiBr and NH3H2O pairs, the former being better and riskless for air-conditioning applications. In these machines, refrigerant vapor is separated in the generator thanks to the heat
transferred by the external driving uid, which is supplied by the
solar plant. The vapor enters into the condenser and evaporator
in a similar way as in a conventional electricity-driven compression machine. The vapor produced in the evaporator incorporates
to the solution in the absorber, releasing the absorption and dilution heats to ambient. If only one generator is used, the system is
named single-effect. This is the most common technology utilized
for solar cooling, allowing the use of conventional at plate collectors [4,5].
Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 91 624 8465; fax: +34 91 624 9430.
E-mail address: mvenegas@ing.uc3m.es (M. Venegas).
0306-2619/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2010.10.011

Nowadays small-scale systems receive increasing attention for

their potential application to single-family housing or to small
buildings. For example, Desideri et al. [6] describe different technical installations for solar cooling, their way of operation, advantages and limits, analyzing their technical and economic feasibility.
The dissemination of the solar cooling systems depends much on
the economy, real energy saving and emission reduction. Thus, real
operating data summarized in manageable gures of merit are
required.
The global performance of the solar cooling facility depends on
the way the solar energy is managed in the daytime. The variability
of weather conditions and solar radiation also contribute to the difculty in obtaining conclusions from real facilities monitoring
campaigns, especially on the dependence from the meteorological
parameters such as solar radiation, temperature, humidity and
wind. In particular, wind effect on operating solar facilities has
not been satisfactorily documented. The instrumentation currently
available in commercial solar cooling facilities is not what is
needed for the determination of the wind heat transfer coefcient,
namely the on-surface wind velocity of each solar collector and the
supercial temperature of the glass cover. Only an on-site weather
station is currently available and in some cases even not; only the
hourly or day averaged weather data is available from a neighbor
public station.
Many researchers in the last years have studied the effect of
wind over the thermal losses of single solar collectors, obtaining
different heat transfer correlations, e.g. [79], but with varying results, because of the different operating conditions. More recently,

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M. Venegas et al. / Applied Energy 88 (2011) 14471454

Nomenclature
C
CE
H
Htilted
Itilted
_
m
Q_
RH
SCOP
t
tcooling
T
T

specic heat of external uids (kJ/kg K)

daily cooling energy produced (kW h)
daily solar irradiation on the horizontal surface (kW h)
daily solar irradiation on the tilted surface (kW h)
solar irradiance on the tilted surface (kW/m2)
mass ow rate (kg/s)
thermal power (kW)
daily averaged relative humidity along the operating
period of the solar cooling facility (%)
daily efciency of conversion of solar radiation into
cooling
time (h)
daily period along which cold water is produced in the
evaporator (h)
temperature (C)
daily averaged ambient temperature along the operating period of the solar cooling facility (C)

Medinelli Sanino and Rojas Reischel [10] have analyzed the inuence of wind velocity magnitude and relative humidity over a solar
energy water heating system incorporating a storage tank. Moreover, the inuence of wind direction has not been studied in detail,
limiting the experimental correlations obtained to wind incidence
angles measured in intervals of 45 [8], or global studies without
obtaining correlations and just for particular types of collectors
[11].
Up to the knowledge of the authors, there is not information on
the effects of wind velocity magnitude and direction on real working solar cooling facilities. Researches on the magnitude of the
inuence of these and others ambient variables on small-scale residential solar cooling system performance seem to be important
and, as far as the authors knowledge, not available. Natural ambience variability and the different possible layouts difcult the derivation of general rules, but some trends and sensibilities of
demonstration facilities could guide the designer, planner
or researcher.
The phenomenological interpretation of the physical process is
simplied when solar cooling facilities are adequately instrumented to allow for a statistical analysis of the experimental data.
Statistical tools, along with phenomenological interpretation,
should shed light on solar cooling performance evaluation and
the effect of weather conditions, so that manageable results could
be offered to researchers, designers and other technology agents.

daily averaged wind velocity magnitude along the operating period of the solar cooling facility (m/s)

Greek symbols
h
daily averaged wind direction along the operating period of the solar cooling facility, measured from the front
side and in respect to the front-rear vertical symmetry
plane of the collector ()
g
collector efciency
Subscripts
a
ambient
beg
beginning
e
evaporator
end
end
i
inlet
o
outlet

This analysis will be performed in the present paper. The facility

under study is based on a commercial single-effect lithium
bromide absorption chiller located at the Universidad Carlos III
de Madrid downtown Legans, south of Madrid, Spain. The region
has a Mediterranean-continental climate, with hot dry summers,
where solar cooling is applicable. This region is representative of
wide zones in which solar cooling can contribute to energy sustainability and electricity-demand peak shaving in summer. Using
standard industry practice, the absorption chiller is integrated into
a solar thermal plant congured to generate hot water, which in
summer is used for air-conditioning purposes.
2. Experimental facility
The facility can be divided into four loops as shown in Fig. 1. The
rst loop consists of insulated piping and 20 at plate solar collectors arranged in four parallel straight lines: VITOSOL 100 w2.5
model, by Viessmann Werke GmbH and Co KG, each one having
2.5 m2 aperture area. Rodrguez-Hidalgo et al. [12] showed that
this total aperture area is representative of what is appropriate
for attending a signicant fraction of a single-family housing cooling demand in Madrid. The manufacturers normalization curve of
the collectors is:

Fig. 1. Conguration of the solar cooling facility.

M. Venegas et al. / Applied Energy 88 (2011) 14471454

1449

 Air temperature, using a Linear Thermistor Network of the

model 50U-44212, manufactured by Vaisala.
 Relative humidity, using also the sensor of the model
50U-44212.
 Wind velocity magnitude and direction, using an anemometer
of the model 05103 manufactured by R.M. Young Company.
The facility is monitored by a data acquisition system that is
controlled by a computer program. Data gathered by the weather
station and information from the solar plant and the absorption
machine (temperatures and ow rates) are recorded on the computer in intervals of Dt = 10 min. Data from the absorption chiller
include:

Fig. 2. View of the at plate collector eld, perimeter protection wall and urban
surrounding.

!


Ti  Ta
T i  T a 2
 0:013
g 0:83  3:36
Itilted
Itilted

Collectors are oriented to south with a surface azimuth angle of

11 east, and are tilted 40, corresponding to the local latitude, on a
at horizontal roof of a prismatic four-story building. Their tops
protrude over the 1 m high of the perimeter protection wall shown
in Fig. 2. This building belongs to the Campus complex which is
located at 40200 north and 3450 west. It is surrounded by a small
city downtown environment made of high-rise buildings.
The second loop comprises a commercial-grade thermal storage
tank of 2000 l capacity, heat exchanger and the corresponding
insulated piping. Water is pumped from the collector eld to the
plate heat exchangers in a closed loop. The function of the heat
exchangers is to prevent mixing between the antifreeze uid used
in the collectors and the pure water circulating through the storage
tank, which is located in the building cellar.
The third loop consists of the absorption chiller and its corresponding piping. Hot water from the storage tank is pumped at a
constant rate to the absorption chiller generator as the energy
input. Temperature is not controlled at the inlet of the generator,
so it varies according to the temperature in the storage tank. There
is no backup boiler operative for this test campaign.
Finally, water from the fourth circuit is chilled in the machine
evaporator. All the cooling energy produced is delivered to the
laboratory using fan-coils. The daily cold water produced represents the real daily cooling energy (CE) of the absorption chiller.
It is a widely implemented pump-less Yazaki WFC 10 of 35 kW
nominal cooling capacity. This machine size was of the smallest
capacity available in the market when the project started. An
external open wet cooling tower jointly cools the absorber and
the condenser.
Flow rates produced by constant velocity pumps are smaller
than the nominal values. These ow rates were kept constant (generator: 0.46 l/s, condenserabsorber: 0.88 l/s, evaporator: 0.30 l/s),
since the beginning of the experimental campaign, to maintain
generation, condensationabsorption and evaporation temperatures at the favorable level.
The facility includes an independent weather station located
6.5 m above the collector eld, with no obstructions in the surrounding. It gathers instantaneous data of the following variables
[13]:
 Solar irradiance on the horizontal plane, using a class 1 pyranometer, model CM3 manufactured by Kipp & Zonen B.V..

 Temperature of the external uids at the inlet and outlet of the

generator, evaporator and condenserabsorber. Measurements
were taken using type T thermocouples with an uncertainty of
0.5 C.
 Volumetric ow rates of the external uids. Magnetic ow
meters delivered this information with an uncertainty of 0.5%
of the ow rate after calibration.
3. Data reduction
Fig. 3 shows a scheme of the experimental facility in which temperature and ow rates readouts are presented for July 22 of 2005,
at 16:20 h local standard time. This time is ofcially 2 h in advance
to meridian time in summer.
The instantaneous cooling power produced by the absorption
chiller Q_ e , is calculated using:

_ e C e T e;i  T e;o
Q_ e m

The daily cold produced (CE) is calculated summing up all the

energy obtained throughout each day. In Eq. (3) the summation
is performed for the 144 data points saved throughout each day:

CE Dt

144
X

Q_ e

i1

The daily overall efciency of the solar cooling facility SCOP is

calculated as the ratio between CE and the solar irradiation on
the tilted surface along the day Htilted.

SCOP

CE
Htilted

The cooling time tcooling is the period elapsed between the beginning and the end of cold-water production in the evaporator:

tcooling tend  t beg

4. Results and discussion

Legans is close to Madrid, both located near the center of
Spain, having about 2800 sunny hours per year [14]. Incident total
solar irradiation in an average day of the 2005 summer season, on a
horizontal surface and on a 40 tilted surface located in the collectors eld, reached 7.2 and 6.5 kW h/m2 respectively.
The 2005 summer season was not exceptional. It included 57
operating days between June 25 and August 31, the useful days
represent 84% (days in which the chiller worked). During the
non-useful days either solar irradiation was not sufcient for
starting the absorption machine (3 days) or data were not recorded
due to technical reasons (8 days).
In Fig. 3 the only two components directly inuenced by the
weather variables H, T, V, h and RH are enclosed by a dash line.
These components are the collector eld and the cooling tower.

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M. Venegas et al. / Applied Energy 88 (2011) 14471454

92 C
85 C

74 C

86 C
0.53 l/s

2.3 bar

0.3 l/s

25 C

0.46 l/s

20 C
0.9 l/s
9 C

68 C

13 C

75 C

0.3 l/s
Fig. 3. Experimental data of the solar cooling facility (July 22nd of 2005 at 16:20 local standard time).

The rest of components: storage tank, heat exchanger, absorption

chiller and fan-coils are thermally isolated in an adequate way.
They are located inside non-air-conditioned rooms (cellar and laboratory), as usual, thus being only indirectly inuenced by the
weather conditions.
The hot water in the storage tank was under well-mixed operating conditions, i.e., the temperature of the thermal uid inside
the tank was approximately homogeneous. Location of the inlet

and outlet ports in the tank (see Fig. 3) guarantees this performance. In previous experimental studies [15,16], it was shown that
this conguration allows higher cooling production than in stratied operating conditions (higher temperature at the top of the
tank and lower at the bottom). In addition, the well-mixed operating regime extends the period to supply the heating power to the
absorption machine throughout the day, increasing this way the
heat power supply in the evening, when the condensationabsorp-

Solar radiant power

Power supplied to the storage tank
Cooling power

Collectors power
Power supplied to the chiller

50
45
40

Power (kW)

35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
6:00

8:00

10:00

12:00

14:00

16:00

18:00

20:00

22:00

Local standard time (hh:mm)

Fig. 4. Daily behaviour on a representative summer sunny day (July 1st of 2005) of thermal powers in the solar cooling facility.

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M. Venegas et al. / Applied Energy 88 (2011) 14471454

tion temperature is decreasing. At the same time, cold demand is

important in the evening for housing applications [12]. Thus, a better match between the cooling energy supply and the demand is
obtained.
When the hot water temperature from the storage tank decreased, typically late in the evening (about 20:00 local standard
time), and it was not hot enough for transferring heat to the solution in the generator, the machine continued producing cold water
for a period of about 30 min, being driven by thermal inertia and/or
internally stored refrigerant, indicating a noticeable transient
effect related to the chiller. For a typical day, this hot water temperature in the storage tank corresponded to 64 C. The following
morning (8:00 local standard time), water in the storage tank
was stratied, reaching about 60 C in the top and 50 C in the
bottom. The beginning of operation reintroduces the well-mixed
regime in a short time.
Fig. 4 offers a comparison between the solar radiant power, the
power transferred to the thermal uid inside the collectors, the
powers supplied to the storage tank and to the chiller and the cooling power produced by the absorption machine for a representative summer sunny day. Data correspond to July 1st of 2005. The
transient effects during the morning and the evening can be observed. Oscillations in the morning and the evening are related to
the stop of the pump located in the second loop (Fig. 1), with the
objective of avoiding that the storage tank water be cooled by
the thermal uid circulating through the collectors. The extension
Table 1
Ranges of operational and dependent variables.
Variable

Minimum

Maximum

Averagea

H (kW h)

253
19.7

410
31.8

360
27.5

1.4
12
12.9
0.7
1.8
3.3

3.9
175
46.9
11.0
38.1
10.7

2.3
90
28.3
6.7
22.3
7.8

T (C)
V (m/s)
h ()
RH (%)
SCOP (%)
CE (kW h)
tcooling (h)

of the operating period of the absorption chiller throughout the

day, due to use of a well-mixed conguration for the storage tank,
is experimented at the evening.
Displacement of the maximum of the solar radiant power from
12:00 to the right of the scale is due to the following reason. That
day in Legans, the difference between the local standard time and
the meridian standard time (local time zone for the standard
meridian, in this case the Greenwich meridian) is 2 h. If the local
longitude and the correction for the time equation are also taken
into account, a difference of 2 h and 18 min is obtained between
the local standard time and the solar time.
Table 1 gives the minimum, maximum and average values
along the season of the operational variables considered in this
study: H, T, V, h and RH. Table 2 gives the goodness of the t parameter R2 of the correlation between the individual operational variables, showing a general high degree of independence between
them.
Figs. 57 show the evolution of these variables along the whole
season. Solar irradiation is decreasing along the testing campaign,
as indicated in Fig. 5, while average ambient temperature oscillates
with random appearance. Average wind velocity magnitude and
direction, shown in Fig. 6, and average relative humidity, shown
in Fig. 7, neither have a clear tendency along the season, also showing a random appearance.
Table 1 gives also the minimum, maximum and average values
along the season of the dependent variables used to evaluate the
solar cooling facility performance: SCOP, CE and tcooling. Figs. 8
and 9 show the evolution of these variables along the same period.
In this case, SCOP and CE show a similar tendency throughout the
season, but the evolution of tcooling is different.
Using STATISTICA software, the relationship between the
aforementioned operational variables and the dependent ones
was evaluated through a multiple regression model. First order
least squares ts, valid for data between the limits given in Table
1, appear in Eqs. (6)(8). The simplicity of these models seeks facilitating the evaluation of operative solar cooling facilities.

SCOP 3:8  104  H 1:6  103  T  8:9  103  V 1:4

 104  h  4:8  104  RH  9:2  102

It is the average along the whole season considering the operating period of the
solar facility: from sunrise to the end of cold-water production.

Table 2
Parameter R2 evaluating the lineal relationship between operational variables.
Variable

RH

0.00

0.01
0.12

0.02
0.07

0.05
0.34

0.02

0.02
0.00

CE 0:15  H 0:33  T  3:16  V 0:04  h

 0:18  RH  32:69  4:24;

R2 75%

tcooling 3:7  102  H 2:9  101  T  7:4  103  V 6:3

 103  h 1:5  102  RH  14:6  0:86;

R2 78%
8

45

600

400

35

200

25

T (C)

H (kWh)

T
V
h
RH

R2 71%

 0:013;

15

0
1

11

16

21

26

31

36

41

46

51

56

Day
Fig. 5. Solar irradiation on the horizontal surface H and average ambient temperature T. Day 1 corresponds to June 25 and day 57 to August 31.

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M. Venegas et al. / Applied Energy 88 (2011) 14471454

180

135

90

45

V (m/s)

(degrees)

Theta

0
1

11

16

21

26

31

36

41

46

51

56

Day
Fig. 6. Average values of wind velocity magnitude V and direction h. Day 1 corresponds to June 25 and day 57 to August 31.

50

RH (%)

40

30

20

10
1

11

16

21

26

31

36

41

46

51

56

Day
Fig. 7. Average relative humidity RH. Day 1 corresponds to June 25 and day 57 to August 31.

60

12%

SCOP

CE
50
40
30

6%

20

CE (kWh)

SCOP (%)

9%

3%
10
0

0%
1

11

16

21

26

31

36

41

46

51

56

Day
Fig. 8. Solar coefcient of performance SCOP and cooling energy produced by the solar facility CE. Day 1 corresponds to June 25 and day 57 to August 31.

11

t cooling (h)

3
1

11

16

21

26

31

36

41

46

51

56

Day
Fig. 9. Cooling time tcooling along the test campaign. Day 1 corresponds to June 25 and day 57 to August 31.

M. Venegas et al. / Applied Energy 88 (2011) 14471454

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
SCOP
RH

CE
Theta

tcooling
T

Fig. 10. Weight of the operational variables in the prediction of the dependent
ones.

In spite of the moderate values of R2, they can be acceptable owing to the high variability of the natural processes involved along
the season. STATISTICA software also gives information about
the relative importance of each operational variable in the dependent ones. The height of the bars in Fig. 10 represents the weight of
each weather variable in the prediction of the dependent one, i.e.,
how much a dependent variable is sensitive to an operational one,
in a numerically homogeneous way. The results presented in
Fig. 10 correspond to the data of the 57 days used for perform
the linear regression.
As observed, the major effect on SCOP, CE and tcooling is due to
the solar irradiation, as could be expected. Solar irradiation directly contributes to improve the performance of the solar facility,
increasing the temperature in the storage tank and, as a result,
the generation temperature of the absorption chiller. Thus, higher
solar irradiation becomes into higher values of SCOP, CE and
tcooling.
Fig. 10 allows also concluding that the solar irradiation H, wind
velocity magnitude V and direction h mainly determined SCOP and
CE. The time along which cold water is produced, tcooling, is highly
sensitive to the solar irradiation H and the average ambient temperature T.
Ambient temperature is a variable having a noticeable inuence
on solar cooling facilities, modifying their performance in two different known ways:
 Higher ambient temperature contributes to improve the performance of the solar collectors, reducing the heat losses to the
ambient (see Eq. (1)). Consequently, the thermal uid reaches
a higher temperature through the solar collectors, leading the
absorption chiller to a better performance because the driving
generation temperature is higher.
 Ambient temperature also modies the condensationabsorption temperature of the absorption machine, but indirectly.
Higher ambient temperature increases the cooling tower temperature and leads to a decrease in the absorption machine performance, because temperature lift increases, meaning this the
temperature difference between recooling (condensation and
absorption circuits) and chilled water temperature.

1453

The response of the absorption machine to a rise in both temperatures (generation and condensationabsorption) determines
the global performance of the system. The effect of an increase in
the ambient temperature over the global performance of a real
working solar absorption cooling facility is novel information.
From Eqs. (6)(8) it can be concluded that the average ambient
temperature T has a positive inuence on SCOP, CE and tcooling. The
results obtained indicate that the inuence of the higher generation temperature is stronger than the effect of the higher condensationabsorption temperature, which tends to decrease the
performance of the absorption chiller. This is supported by theoretical and experimental studies on the operation of absorption chillers, such as [1719], among others. It must be remarked that the
evaporation temperature varies also, as the cooled room was not
temperature controlled. This is a result of the solar cold being
not able to fully match the load. Moreover, in Madrid region, low
air humidity generally accompanies high ambient temperature
events, limiting the temperature of the water coming from the
wet cooling tower in hot days, as the wet bulb temperature does
not increase at the same rate than the dry bulb temperature.
Another interesting result found is the notable inuence of
wind velocity magnitude on SCOP and CE. A quantication of its
inuence can be performed using the rst order correlations obtained. Predicted values for SCOP and CE, using Eqs. (6) and (7),
are calculated in two cases:
 Using real values of wind velocity magnitude.
 Wind velocity is reduced to the minimum value used to obtain
the correlations, V = 1.4 m/s.
Gains obtained in SCOP and CE, due to the reduction of wind
velocity magnitude from real values to this minimum value, corresponds to 11% and 12% respectively for the whole test campaign.
As observed, the increase of the wind velocity magnitude spoils
the collectors performance, increasing the top glass cover convection heat losses. This result is in accordance with previous theoretical studies evaluating the inuence of wind over solar thermal
plants [20].
Wind direction has also a signicant importance on system performance, according to Fig. 10. In the present study, wind direction
is measured taking as reference the front side of the collectors (0).
It is measured symmetrically respect to the front-rear plane of the
collectors layout, taking a value of 90 when wind is parallel to collector surface. From Eqs. (6)(8), wind direction effect is worst
when incidence angle approaches the front side of the collectors,
i.e. front impinging wind. This result is similar to that reported
by Fleck et al. [11] evaluating a solar plant not for air-conditioning
purposes.

5. Conclusions
This paper evaluates the performance of a commercial absorption air-conditioning facility in Madrid, working when driven
exclusively by solar thermal energy. The following main conclusions have been obtained from the present study:
 The statistical analysis developed using daily data allowed
revealing the inuences of the weather variables, which
Fig. 10 summarizes; offering real working data to the research
community and facility planners.
 The most important variable inuencing the daily averaged
SCOP, CE and tcooling is the daily solar energy received H. SCOP
and CE are mainly inuenced by H, the wind velocity magnitude
V and direction h. The time along which cold water is produced,
tcooling, is highly sensitive to H and T.

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M. Venegas et al. / Applied Energy 88 (2011) 14471454

 Average ambient temperature during solar facility operation

was found to have a positive inuence on SCOP, CE and tcooling.
The positive inuence of the resulting higher generation temperature was identied to be greater than the negative one
coming from the higher cooling tower water temperature,
which tends to decrease the performance of the absorption
machine. This effect is benecial to the solar cooling technology
performances, as it indicates that a higher cooling load can be
matched on hot clear sky days.
 Wind effect has been found to be important in reducing efciency. Its effect is worst when incidence angle approaches
the front side of the collectors, i.e. front impinging wind. As
the wind velocity magnitude increases, the performance of
the solar cooling facility decreases, mainly reducing SCOP and
CE. Gains obtained in SCOP and CE, due to the reduction of wind
velocity magnitude from real values to the minimum residual
value found experimentally (1.4 m/s), corresponds to 11% and
12% respectively for the whole test campaign. This indicates
the convenience of including the effect of wind in studies and
projects. It also indicates that installing non-shadowing wind
protection devices in future facilities, especially in windy locations, can improve cold production.
 The statistical analysis of the experimental data can be used as a
diagnostic procedure for already built facilities. If data of some
seasons are available, an analysis similar to the one developed
in this paper could be carry out, allowing for the identication
of parameters critical for the performance of the solar cooling
facility. From this, correcting measures could be applied with
the aim of increasing performance.

Acknowledgements
This work has been partially funded by the research grants
ENE2007-63965/ALT and ENE2005-08255-C02-02. Their contribution is greatly appreciated.
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