Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com

Solar Energy 86 (2012) 12871299

www.elsevier.com/locate/solener

Prospects for solar cooling An economic

and environmental assessment
Todd Otanicar a,, Robert A. Taylor b, Patrick E. Phelan c
b

a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA 90045, United States
School for Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
c
School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, United States

Received 25 August 2011; received in revised form 16 November 2011; accepted 21 January 2012
Available online 17 February 2012
Communicated by: Associate Editor Yogi Goswami

Abstract
Producing refrigeration and/or air conditioning from solar energy remains an inviting prospect, given that a typical buildings cooling
load peaks within 2 or 3 h of the time of maximum solar irradiation. The attractiveness of free cooling obtained from the sun has
spawned a wealth of research over the last several decades, as summarized in a number of review articles. Obstaclesespecially high
initial costsremain to the widespread commercialization of solar cooling technologies. It is not clear at the present time if thermally
driven systems will prove to be more competitive than electrically driven systems. We therefore describe a technical and economic comparison of existing solar cooling approaches, including both thermally and electrically driven. We compare the initial costs of each technology, including projections about future costs of solar electric and solar thermal systems. Additionally we include estimates of the
environmental impacts of the key components in each solar cooling system presented. One measure of particular importance for social
acceptance of solar cooling technologies is the required footprint, or collector area, necessary for a given cooling capacity. We conclude with recommendations for future research and development to stimulate broader acceptance of solar cooling. The projections made
show that solar electric cooling will require the lowest capital investment in 2030 due to the high COPs of vapor compression refrigeration and strong cost reduction targets for PV technology.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Solar cooling; Photovoltaic; Solar thermal; Absorption chiller

1. Introduction
Using sunlight to produce cooling is a long-sought goal.
Intuitively, the need for cooling is proportional to the solar
intensity, thus nearly matching the time of peak cooling
demand with the time of maximum sunlight. Given this
close coincidence between resource and need, it is no wonder then that considerable eort has been devoted to producing economical solar cooling technologies. These can
be divided into roughly two approachesheat-activated
systems which rely on solar thermal energy, such as an
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 310 338 3872.

E-mail address: todd.otanicar@lmu.edu (T. Otanicar).

0038-092X/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.solener.2012.01.020

absorption refrigeration cycle that is driven primarily by

heat input, and work-activated systems like the conventional vapor-compression cycle which requires compressor
work input that is normally electrically powered. The question remains as to which approach is more practical, i.e.,
more economical? The answer to this question depends in
part on the scale of the system. Here, we restrict our analysis to a size suitable for a typical single-family residence.
In short, our work attempts to provide an answer to this
question: for a given climatic zone (here we will assume
the southwestern USA), for a typical residence (5 ton, or
17.5 kW of cooling), is it better to use a solar thermal cooling system, or one driven by solar photovoltaic (PV) panels? We base our analysis entirely on the initial cost of

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the system. We believe this is appropriate since solar systems essentially require the user to come up with lifetime
system costs up front while fuel/electricity costs are usually
negligible. That is, operation and (ideally) maintenance
costs of a solar cooling system are low when compared to
the initial capital cost. As such, this analysis considers performance and initial costs for a number of dierent types of
solar cooling technologies. Comparisons for both current
costs as well as projected future costs are presented.
It is rst instructive to provide a brief review of solar
cooling technologies. We do not attempt here an extensive
technical review, as that has been admirably done in a
number of publications (Balaras, 2007; Best and Ortega,
1999; Desideri et al., 2009; Florides et al., 2002; Fong
et al., 2010; Gordon and Ng, 2000; Grossman, 2002; Hang
et al., 2011; Henning, 2007; Hwang et al., 2008; Kim and
Ferreira, 2008; Klein and Reindl, 2005; Papadopoulos
et al., 2003; Pesaran and Neymark, 1995; Zhai and Wang,
2009) especially in comparison of the various solar thermal systems (Anyanwu, 2004a,b; Critoph, 1988; Halliday
et al., 2002; Srikhirin, 2001; Wang et al., 2009). Rather,
we focus on a strictly economic comparison (rst cost)
between solarthermal-driven and solarPV-driven air conditioning technologies, again at the residential scale. The
rst type of solar cooling technology considered is PV-driven air conditioning. This type of system uses a conventional vapor compression air conditioning cycle in which
the electrical input is provided by solar PV panels. This is
compared to the following selected solarthermal cooling
technologies: the rst type that we consider is based on a
solid desiccant, in which solar heat is used to regenerate
the desiccant after it has absorbed water from an incoming
air stream. Water is sprayed into the dehumidied air
stream, thus lowering its temperature and providing a cooling eect. The second type of thermally driven system is
absorption cooling, in which the refrigerant vapor is
absorbed into a liquid, thus allowing its pressure to be economically increased by a pump, rather than by a vapor
compressor that requires much more mechanical input.
As described below, we consider both NH3/H2O and
H2O/aqueous LiBr types of absorption cycles. The third,
and nal, type of thermally driven system is the adsorption
cycle, where the refrigerant vapor is adsorbed onto the surface of a solid adsorbent, which when heated desorbs the
vapor and thus pressurizes the vessel in which the vapor
is contained. This, in eect, creates a thermal compressor
that replaces a conventional electrically driven compressor.
In all cases, means for storing energythermal storage for
the thermally driven systems, and electrical storage for the
PV-driven systemare included in the analysis. More
details on the refrigeration cycles and storage systems are
provided below.
Most previous studies of solar air conditioning tended
to focus on just thermally driven technologies, and did
not provide a rigorous comparison between thermal and
PV systems. There are, however, some notable exceptions.
The study that is the closest in intent to the present work is

also the oldest report that we have discovered, as it was

published in 1983 (Ayyash and Sartawi, 1983). It was
found, upon consideration of both the initial and operating
costs that a PV-assisted vapor-compression system could
be cost-competitive with an absorption system driven by
solar thermal energy. Much later, Klein and Reindl
(2005) concluded that only PV-driven cooling would be
viable for providing sub-zero (freezing) solar refrigeration,
compared with an NH3/H2O absorption system, and a second thermal system in which solar heat powers a Rankine
cycle that in turn provides mechanical input to a vaporcompression cycle. In a somewhat similar manner, Casals
(2006) compared local (decentralized) solar absorption
cooling with cooling provided by centralized solar thermal
power plants, which generate electricity that is distributed
to conventional vapor compression units at the point of
use. No clear conclusions were reached after a fairly rigorous evaluation of cost and other variables. Kim and
Ferreira (2008) reported a comprehensive study of several
solar thermal and solar PV cooling systems, based on both
technical and economic considerations. Their conclusion
was that solar thermal cooling, in particular a single-eect
H2O/aqueous LiBr absorption system, followed next by
H2O/silica gel adsorption and double-eect H2O/aqueous
LiBr absorption systems, are more competitive than the
other solar cooling technologies, including PV-driven systems. Finally, an extensive evaluation of solar cooling technologies coupled with building cooling demand for Hong
Kong (Fong et al., 2010) reported that solar PV-driven systems had the greatest potential to deliver the highest annual
energy savings, compared with a number of solar thermal
technologies. Cost, however, did not seem to be considered
in this analysis.
In summary, relatively few studies have undertaken a
technical and, perhaps more importantly, an economic
comparison between solar thermal and solar PV cooling
systems. The results to date are mixed, motivating our
interest to conduct further analysis.

2. Economic analysis
The economic analysis focuses on current and projected
costs for the equipment associated with the proposed solar
powered cooling schemes outlined in Figs. 1 and 2. It is not
expected that the maintenance costs over the life of the systems will be signicantly dierent enough to alter the
results and are not considered in the resulting analysis.
As mentioned above, the amount of cooling to be provided
by these systems is 5 tons (17.58 kW). Thus, all systems
are normalized by the same amount of cooling, but will
have dierent solar collector area and storage capacity
requirements to deliver the necessary energy. The solar
irradiance is assumed to be a peak value of 1000 W/m2.
This ideal condition is chosen because solar cooling will
be most likely sited in high ux locations, this is the ASTM
standard ux value, and using a constant ux value such as

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Fig. 1. Schematic of potential solar photovoltaic cooling system.

Fig. 2. Schematic of potential solar thermal cooling system.

this will make comparison between various technologies

straight forward.
In order to achieve a stable cooling solution we also
include a storage system capable of providing up to 8 h
of energy storage. Since the heart of the analysis is to determine the initial (capital) cost variation, the output throughout the year for each system is not considered, but readers
are referred to the detailed performance analysis in Fong
et al. (2010).
2.1. Solar photovoltaic systems
As shown in Fig. 1 the solar electric system is comprised
of four major components: PV modules, inverter, battery
and vapor compression cooling system. For each of these
four components it is necessary to determine the current
eciency or coecient of performance (COP) and to project these values into 2030. Since research and development
into photovoltaic technology has been widely supported by
a variety of government research agencies, many eciency
forecasts and projections are available. Based on the International Energy Agency projections for single crystal silicon PV modules, eciency values of 17%, 19% and 21%

are used for years 2010, 2020 and 2030 respectively (Solar
Photovoltaic Roadmap, 2010). The inverters used in most
PV systems have already achieved high levels of eciency
(90% by 2010) with projections forecasting eciencies at
levels of 9598% by 20202030 (Navigant, 2006). The projections for battery eciency reveal relatively stable levels
of eciency for PV systems at 80%. Projections for new
technologies being developed for large-scale energy storage
suggest 80% eciency is a reasonable expectation
(U.S.C.T. Program, 2005). These three technologies comprise the power input side of the solar cooling system, while
the vapor compression refrigeration unit is the actual cooling system. Regulations on new installations of air conditioners require COP values of at least 3 ( Energy Savers,
2010) while systems with COPs nearing 6 are readily commercially available, albeit at greater expense (Innity Series
Central Air Conditioner, 2010). These eciencies form the
basis for calculating the necessary system sizes given the
desired cooling demand and input solar irradiance. To
determine the size of the PV collector, inverter, and battery
bank, the eciencies referenced are used in combination
with the peak solar ux and cooling load. The required
electrical power output from the PV system is determined

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only from the cooling demand, COP, storage eciency and

inverter eciency:
qcool
1
QPV
COP gst ginv
where qcool is the ideal cooling energy, ginv is the inverter
eciency, and gst the storage eciency. Again the above
equation is only used to determine the output power from
the PV system; the sizing of the PV system itself is completely tied to the PV system eciency. The footprint of
the system (i.e., the collector area APV), another important
aspect of system adoption, can be found with the following:
qcool
2
APV
COP gst ginv gpv gsun
where gPV is the PV eciency and qsun is the input solar
irradiance. In a similar method the amount of power into
the inverter required to meet the cooling load can be found
as follows:
qcool
qinv
3
COP ginv
The amount of energy stored can be found based on the
assumption that 8 h of cooling capacity will be stored:
Qst

tst qcool
COP gst ginv

where tst is the storage time. These three parameters form

the basis for calculating the cost associated for each component of the proposed solar cooling system.
The associated costs for each component are based on
estimates from a variety of references that compile average
prices as well as generate forecasts of projected prices.
Because of this, an approach was taken that looks at the
ceiling and oor estimates of the projections to determine
ranges of potential overall costs. A challenging aspect of
compiling the economic projections are the wide variety
of data sources as well as determining what components
(for example PV projections often are for the full system
including inverter) are included. This is an additional reason for using a ceiling-oor approach. For the PV module,
not including the inverter, the following values are taken as
the prices for the noted year (the ceiling prices are in parentheses): 2010 $4.8/W ($5.35/W), 2020 $1.81/W ($2.45/
W), and 2030 $1.25/W ($1.9/W) (Solar Photovoltaic
Roadmap, 2010; Projection of PV System Prices, 2004;
Itron, 2007). Inverter prices are drawn from a variety of
projections based on current prices as well as from the target price goals set forth by the United States Department
of Energy, and are assumed as the following: 2010
$0.65/W ($0.85/W), 2020 $0.25/W ($0.58/W), and 2030
$0.2/W ($0.55/W) (Navigant, 2006; Itron, 2007). Due
to the relatively stable and widespread use of electrical
energy storage costs for battery storage are projected to
remain constant at $150/kW h (Ton et al., 2008). The
resulting component costs for current and future years of
solar PV cooling are displayed in Fig. 3. As displayed,

the largest decrease in cost comes from the PV module

itself while the decrease in the cost of the inverter has less
impact. The cost of the 5-ton vapor compression refrigeration system with a COP of 3 is considered to have a present
and future unit cost of $3501 (EnergyStar, Savings Calculator, 2010) while it is assumed that a system with a COP
of 6 will be three times the cost (EnergyStar, Savings Calculator, 2010).
2.2. Solar thermal systems
The main promise of using thermal systems is that they
can utilize more of the incoming sunlight than photovoltaic
systems. Fig. 4 shows, roughly, what happens to the solar
spectrum when it strikes a conventional PV collector.
One can see that much of the incoming solar power is converted to heat and cannot be used to generate electricity in
a PV system. Since the purpose of a thermal collector is to
convert light into heat (which is rather easy to do) thermal
collectors have no such limitation. Depending on the
absorbing medium, a thermal system can absorb over
95% of the incoming radiation (Due and Beckman,
2006). Of course, not all of this is converted to useful
energy due to ineciencies/losses along the way. Nonetheless, collection eciencies for commercial solar thermal
collectors are generally more than double that of crystalline
photovoltaic solar collectors (Choudhury et al., 2010; Joshi
et al., 2009).
In general, a solar thermal cooling system consists of
four basic components as shown in Fig. 2: a solar collector
array, a thermal storage tank, a thermal air conditioning
unit, and a heat exchange system to transfer energy
between components and the conditioned space. In each
component category there are several options. At present,
no particular combination of these components has proven
dominant, but most have been built and tested over the
years (Anyanwu, 2004a,b; Critoph, 1988; Halliday et al.,
2002; Srikhirin, 2001; Wang et al., 2009).
Options for the rst component, the solar array, can
vary signicantly in complexity. These options can be
roughly categorized as the following: at plate, evacuated
tube, and concentrating collectors. In order to choose
between these, one must dene the temperatures needed
to run the thermal A/C system. In most cases this is
between 60 and 100 C i.e., falling into the medium temperature class of collectors. Thus, selected at plate collectors, evacuated tube collectors, and concentrating
collectors of low concentration are all technically viable
options. Due to the added complexity of tracking, most
concentrating collectors are expected to be too expensive
as an input for residential solar cooling systems. It should
be noted that the eciency for any thermal collectors goes
down as the temperature dierence between the working
uid and the ambient is increased. Looking at this fact
the other way, the eciency of thermal collectors improves
as the ambient temperature is increased. This is opposite to
how PV modules respond to ambient temperature changes.

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Fig. 3. Current and projected component and storage costs of solar electric technologies (blue-inverter component cost, red-PV collector component cost,
black-battery storage cost). (For interpretation of the references to color in this gure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Fig. 4. Solar spectrum used in a PV system. Energy distribution from

(Due and Beckman, 2006).

To nd common ground between dierent designs, we

will assume solar thermal collection eciency can be
approximated by the following general equation (Due
and Beckman, 2006):
gtc ao  a1

Tm  Ta
T m  T a 2
 a2
qsun
qsun

That is, we assume thermal collector eciency, gtc, is a

function of the dierence between the mean temperature,
Tm, in the solar collector and the ambient temperature,
Ta. It is also a function of the solar irradiance, qsun, and
constants a0, a1, a2. These constants account for dierent
geometries and collector types. If constants a1 and a2 are
large, collector eciency will drop o quickly at high operating temperature. For our analysis we chose the following

constants to represent selected commercial evacuated tube

and at plate collectors, respectively: a0 = 0.39 and 0.69,
a1 = 0.83 and 3.39, a2 = 4.7  103 and 1.9  103. The
eciency of the thermal collector is expected to increase
over time. To estimate future eciencies we have extended
the trends of historic eciency improvement (assuming a
logarithmic shaped curve). This projection is shown in
Fig. 5 data were collected from AET (2011), Apricus
(2011), and EIA (2010). Thus, solar thermal collection eciencies are expected to stay in the range of 2040%
between now and 2030. Note: this range is valid for the
outlet temperatures that are needed to run a thermal A/C
system.
Options for the second component, the thermal storage
tank, mainly involve the type of storage medium and the
temperatures desired. Because of its low environmental
impact and high specic heat, we will limit our analysis
to using water. Since most thermal A/C systems have COPs
less than unity, we will assume that we need a storage system which can store cold. (Note: If COP is greater than
unity, however, hot storage would be a more ecient system design choice akin to storing electricity as discussed
above.) That is, all things being equal, cold storage will
require a smaller volume tank than hot storage for low
COP systems. For example, if 300 kW h of thermal energy
is put into an A/C system with a COP of 0.7, it will pull
210 kW h energy out of a cold storage tank. This means
a signicant reduction in tank size, assuming the storage
medium has the same approximate storage capacity per
unit volume at those temperatures.
In this analysis we will consider sensible chilled water
storage and ice (water) storage for the cold storage. Of
course, if ice storage is used, the COP of the thermal A/
C system is decreased because the system is forced to oper-

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T. Otanicar et al. / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 12871299

Fig. 5. Current and projected eciencies for the thermal A/C systems and medium temperature solar thermal collectors.

ate at a lower temperature. This is accounted for in our

analysis by de-rating the system eciency by a fraction
of the Carnot COP at the given temperature. The following
equation is used to do this:


COP ice

COP normal 

T ice
T a T ice

T normal
T a T normal

where the subscripts ice, normal, and a represent ice conditions (0 C), normal cold-side operating conditions (5
25 C), and the absorber temperature input conditions
(6085 C), respectively. This equation was derived from
the Carnot eciency of absorption refrigeration systems
(Carmargo et al., 2003). One assumption made in using this
equation is that we are in a linear region where (all things
being equal) changing the cold side temperature proportionally changes the COP.
Another important parameter is the eciency of storage. For this analysis, we will conservatively assume that
the round trip eciency of the storage system is 90%. This
means that over the course of a day, one can expect to get
back 90% of the energy that was put into storage. In order
to meet demand overnight, we will need to assume that the
storage tank is big enough to store 8 h worth of cooling.
Options for the thermal A/C component are the real
focus of this study. As such, our analysis will include the
following potential cooling options: Desiccant, absorption
using lithium bromide (LiBr), absorption using ammonia
(NH3), and adsorption cooling. If we take a simple, toplevel view of these systems, the main dierences between
them are found in their overall COP and their necessary
uid input temperature. In general, the COP is dened as
the following:
q
COP cool
7
qth

where qcool is the heat removed from the conditioned space

and qth is the heat input to the thermal A/C system. In this
analysis all the systems will provide the same amount of
cooling (5 tons) to be directly comparable to each other
and to the PV system discussed above.
Briey, each solar-powered A/C unit operates as
follows.
2.2.1. Desiccant
A desiccant system is usually an open cycle where two
wheels turn in tandem a desiccant wheel containing a
material which can eectively absorb water, and a thermal
wheel which heats and cools inward and outward ows.
Warm, humid, outside air enters the desiccant wheel where
it is dried by the desiccant material. Next, it goes to the
thermal wheel which pre-cools this dry, warm air. Next,
the air is cooled further by being re-humidied. When leaving, cool, conditioned air is humidied to saturation and is
used to cool o the thermal wheel. After the thermal wheel,
the now warm humid air is heated further by solar heat in
the regenerator. Lastly, this hot air passes through the desiccant wheel so that it can dry the desiccant material on its
way out of the cycle.
2.2.2. Absorption
Both absorption cycles that we are using in this study
work in a similar manner. The main dierence between
them is which substances are used as the refrigerant and
absorbent. In an LiBr system, LiBr is the absorbent and
water is the refrigerant. In an NH3 absorption system,
water is now the absorbent and NH3 is the refrigerant.
In both cases, the job of the compressor (in a conventional vapor compression system) is replaced by an absorber and a generator. Concentrated absorbent enters the
absorber, which is connected to the evaporator. When

T. Otanicar et al. / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 12871299

refrigerant is boiled o in the evaporator (removing heat

from the conditioned space), vapor (of relatively high pressure) then moves to the LiBr/water absorber where it is
absorbed. Next, the mixture moves to the generator where
solar heat is supplied to boil o the refrigerant. High-pressure refrigerant vapor then travels to the condenser where
heat is rejected to the surroundings to condense the refrigerant back to liquid. Liquid refrigerant goes back into the
evaporator, where it can be used again to take in heat from
the conditioned space, which completes the loop.
2.2.3. Adsorption
In this cycle, solar heat is directed to a sealed container
containing solid adsorbent saturated with refrigerant. Once
this reaches the proper temperature/pressure the refrigerant desorbs and leaves this container as pressurized vapor.
That is, the vapor has been compressed with thermal
energy. This vapor then travels to a condenser where it
turns to liquid by rejecting heat to the surroundings.
Expanded, low-pressure liquid refrigerant then ows over
the evaporator which pulls heat from the conditioned space
to boil o the refrigerant. The refrigerant vapor can then be
adsorbed again by the cool adsorbent material easily at
night. Thus, the diurnal adsorption cooling cycle is complete. Note that diurnal cycles are convenient, but not
necessary.
As mentioned above, the most important parameter in
this analysis is the COP. Based on historic improvements,
the COP is likely to increase over time. Our assumptions
for thermal A/C unit COP improvements to 2030 (assumed
to follow logarithmic curves) are shown in Fig. 5. Data for
historic trends come from Balaras (2007), Fong et al.
(2010), Carmargo et al. (2003), Florides et al. (2002), Harrison and Sasaki (1978), Henning et al. (2001), Pita (1991),
Robur (2011), Sozen (2001), Tchernev (1979), Wang et al.
(2010), and Yazaki (2011). Overall, desiccant cooling systems currently have the highest COP and are projected to
keep that advantage, while adsorption system COP is
improving the fastest. Absorption system COP is found
between the adsorption and desiccant systems with relatively minor dierences projected between LiBr and NH3
into 2030, according to our assumptions.
Options for the nal component, the heat exchange systems, are numerous as well. Many researchers and companies have developed heat exchangers which can be
optimized for almost any application. Since we intend to
exchange heat between two liquids we will simply pick a
good parallel-plate, counter-ow heat exchanger with an
eectiveness of 0.9 (Geankoplis, 2003). In our analysis we
considered the thermal collectors, the A/C unit, and the
cost of thermal storage to be the main contributors to
the thermal cooling capital cost. Thus, the heat exchange
system cost is assumed to be accounted for in the other
components. It is important, however, to include a heat
exchanger eectiveness since it increases the size and cost
of the thermal collector array and the thermal storage system to make up for heat exchange losses.

1293

A similar ceiling-oor approach is used to determine

current and future costs of each system component. The
results of this approach are shown in Fig. 6. Note that
these prices are deceptively low since they are normalized
on a per thermal W (Wth) or kW h (kW hth). That is, it will
take many more Watts or kWatthrs to achieve the same
cooling eect, since thermal A/C units run at a much lower
COP. For the thermal collectors, the following values are
taken as oor (and ceiling) prices for the given year: 2010
$0.83/Wth ($0.84/Wth), 2020 $0.68/Wth ($0.89/Wth),
and 2030 $0.50/Wth ($0.95/Wth) (EIA, 2010). Thermal
storage prices are estimated to currently be $1585/m3
($6/gallon) (Hot Water Tank Price, 2010; Garday and
Housley, 2007; Zalba, 2003) and we estimate this price will
fall at 1% per year to 2030. The major dierence between
our estimated ceiling and oor price is in sensible versus
latent thermal storage. That is, the ceiling price reects
storage using chilled water as sensible heat (with a temperature change of 10 C) and the oor price is for latent
heat in ice (water) storage. This makes a very large dierence since more energy can be stored per cubic meter with
latent storage 11.7 kW hth/m3 as compared to
85.1 kW hth/m3. Thus, the price oor (and ceiling) prices
for storage are the following: 2010 $25.15/kW hth
($129.23/kW hth), 2020- $22.75/kW hth ($116.94/kW hth),
and 2030 $20.59/kW hth ($105.81/kW hth) . Thermal A/
C system (5-ton) costs are dicult to estimate, since with
the exception of some absorption systems, not many commercial systems are on the market. Since cost trends in that
area are hard to predict with little historic data to draw
from, we will conservatively assume the unit will have a
constant price over time. The following costs were assumed
for each 5-ton unit: a LiBr absorption unit $1.14/Wth of
cooling (Yazaki, 2011), a NH3 absorption unit $0.28/Wth
of cooling (Robur, 2011), an adsorption unit $1.14/Wth
of cooling (Wang et al., 2010), and a desiccant unit
$1.42/Wth of cooling (Carmargo et al., 2003). A summary
of the range of component eciencies and costs for both
the solar thermal and solar electric cooling systems can
be found in Table 1.
3. Environmental impact
Although the economic cost represents one of the major
obstacles preventing widespread adoption of solar cooling
systems more and more emphasis will be placed on the
environmental impact of future refrigeration systems. The
environmental impact of utilizing solar energy as a means
to oset fossil fuel usage has seen widespread investigation
(see e.g., Alsema et al., 2006; Ardente et al., 2005; Fthenakis and Alsema, 2005; Kalogirou, 2004) while only limited
studies have assessed the impact of the cooling technologies
themselves (Florides et al., 2002; Heikkila, 2004). In order
to provide a more broad approach to the environmental
impact of solar cooling, four categories are investigated
for their respective impact on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. These categories address the following impacts: life-

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T. Otanicar et al. / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 12871299

Fig. 6. Current and projected component and storage costs of solar thermal technologies (blue-thermal A/C component cost, red-solar thermal collector
component cost, black lines-storage costs). (For interpretation of the references to color in this gure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of
this article.)

time (20 years) impact of solar collection, the lifetime

(20 years) impact of the storage system, the direct impact
of the refrigerants used, and lastly, the indirect eects from
any backup power supplied to the chiller. For the PV systems the indirect eect is comprised of the CO2 emissions
related to the creation of electricity, set at 784 g CO2/
kW h of electricity used, while the thermal systems all
assume natural gas backup at 170 g CO2/kW h of natural
gas energy consumed (EPA, 2010). The environmental cost
associated with utilizing PV cells to produce electricity has
been projected to have anywhere from 25 to 35 g CO2/
kW h of electricity produced over the lifetime of the cell
(Alsema et al., 2006; Fthenakis and Alsema, 2005), while
solar thermal collectors are projected to have embodied
energy requirements resulting in 12 g CO2/kW h of thermal energy provided over the lifetime (this assumes a 20year life, 70% eciency, and 6 kW h/m2/day of irradiance)
(Ardente et al., 2005; Kalogirou, 2004). The associated
costs of storage can be found in a similar fashion with thermal storage having an embodied energy resulting in 66
77 g CO2/kW hth of stored thermal energy (Ardente et al.,
2005) while lead-acid batteries result in 24 g CO2/kW h of
stored electrical energy (Rydh, 1999). As can be seen all
of the numbers are normalized based on the energy output
of the component while it is useful to normalize the results
in terms of the cooling provided based on the component
outputs (input energy to refrigeration system). This normalization, which accounts for the cooling system COP,
is shown below:
g  CO2
g  CO2
1


kW hcooling kW hinput COP

In addition to the component environmental impacts the

impact of any used refrigerant on potential global warming
can be assessed based on the global warming potential
(GWP) of the refrigerant. Based on the results of Florides
et al. (2002) the impact of using R-22 in a 5-ton refrigeration system can be estimated at 18 g CO2/kW h of cooling
provided. As R-22 is phased out of use due to the large
ozone impact other refrigerants may scale this number
based on the GWP (Bovca et al., 2007) of the refrigerant.
Likely replacements such as R-410A are noted to have
lower ozone impact but similar GWP and will not have a
drastic result on the projected equivalent carbon dioxide
release over the life of the system (Bovca et al., 2007).
The thermal systems that use refrigerants, absorption and
adsorption, have the advantage of not having any associated GWP (Bovca et al., 2007), while the use of a desiccant
system would not be expected to lead to any GWP either. It
should be noted that the embodied energy of the mechanical equipment associated with each of the dierent refrigeration systems is assumed to be equal. Thus, we have not
factored it into any of the forthcoming discussions.
4. Results and discussion
The results of the cost projections for solar electric cooling are shown in Fig. 7. Two major observations can be
made from the projections. First, as the projected price
of the solar module goes down, as outlined in Fig. 3, the
cooling system cost decreases in a similar fashion. Second,
the COP of the vapor compression system has a drastic
eect on the overall system cost for current PV prices.
However, this is less important as PV system prices

T. Otanicar et al. / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 12871299

1295

Table 1
Component eciency and cost ranges.
System/component

Eciency/COP
range

Reference

Cost range

References

Photovoltaic cell

1121%

Pesaran and Neymark (1995)

$1.254.80/W

Solar thermal collector

2638%

$217317/m2

Inverter
Battery
Thermal storage
Vapor compression
cooling
Absorption cooling
(LiBr)

9098%
80%
90%
36

U.S.C.T. Program (2005), Energy Savers

(2010) and Innity Series Central Air
Conditioner (2010)
Zhai and Wang (2009)
Anyanwu (2004a)

Anyanwu (2004b) and Critoph (1988)

Pesaran and Neymark (1995); Halliday

et al. (2002); Srikhirin (2001)
Anyanwu (2004a)

$0.200.75/W
$150/kW h
$21135/kW h
$350110,503

Zhai and Wang (2009); Srikhirin (2001)

Wang et al. (2009)
EIA (2010); Carmargo et al. (2003)
Ayyash and Sartawi (1983)

$20,000

Ton et al. (2008)

Absorption cooling
(NH3)

0.570.62

$5000

EnergyStar, Savings Calculator (2010)

Adsorption cooling

0.400.61

$20,000

Joshi et al. (2009)

Desiccant/evaporative
cooling

1.061.22

$25,000

AET (2011)

0.760.83

Gordon and Ng (2000), Kim and Ferreira

(2008), Itron (2007), Ton et al. (2008) and
Due and Beckman (2006)
Gordon and Ng (2000), Kim and Ferreira
(2008), Itron (2007), EnergyStar, Savings
Calculator (2010), Due and Beckman
(2006) and Choudhury et al. (2010)
Gordon and Ng (2000) and Joshi et al.
(2009)
Gordon and Ng (2000) and AET (2011)

decrease-shown by the merging of the two COP-based cost

projections. That is, as the cost of the PV system decreases
the dierence between a high performance and an average
vapor compression system is minimized. As a percentage of
the overall system cost the PV component represents
greater than 69% and 52% of the total cost for 2010 for a
system with a COP of 3 and 6 respectively. In 2030 these
percentages are reduced to 40% and 23% for a system with
a COP of 3 and 6 respectively. This demonstrates that as
the PV cost is reduced the remaining components begin
to have larger impacts, especially for systems with lower
COP values.
Fig. 8A and B shows the costs for the solar thermal cooling technologies. The cost reductions over time are in the

Fig. 7. Current and projected cooling system costs for solar electric
cooling.

neighborhood of those expected by the International

Energy Agency. The IEA projects a drop of 3545%
reduction in total system cost for solar thermal cooling by
2030 (IEA, 2007). These projected reductions are much
lower than those for PV cooling. This is likely due to the fact
that the market is much smaller for the components in a
thermal cooling system. Almost 1 GW of solar PV has been
installed in the United States, whereas, at most 20 MWth
of thermal collectors are installed (depending on eciency
numbers) (EIA, 2010). Further, conventional vapor compression units compete in a large, mature residential market, where thermal A/C units are rarely found. Fig. 8A
shows the cost projections for absorption-based technologies and reveals very minor dierences in the overall costs
of cooling. It should be noted that NH3 absorption systems
are of lower cost simply because the A/C unit price is much
lower $5000 compared to $20,000 for a LiBr system.
Fig. 8B compares the cooling costs of adsorption and desiccant-based systems. The adsorption system has the highest
projected and current costs mainly due to the low COP,
while desiccant-based systems are the most aordable, due
to the highest value of COP for the thermal systems.
Comparing the costs of cooling for solar electric and
thermal systems reveals some important considerations
regarding solar cooling. For solar electric cooling the
COP of the system has a large impact on the system cost
due to the large impact on the PV system cost. Additionally
decreasing cost projections for PV systems lead to large
cost reduction potential whereas little cost reduction is
forecast in the solar thermal technologies leading to relatively at cost projections. In terms of overall cost it
appears that solarthermal-based cooling systems, particularly ammonia absorption and desiccant-based systems are

1296

T. Otanicar et al. / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 12871299

Fig. 8. Current and projected cooling system costs for solar thermal
cooling: (A) absorption systems (LiBr darker shade) and (B) desiccant and
adsorption systems.

currently competitive with solar electric systems using high

performance vapor-compression systems. By 2030 the costs
of solar electric cooling will decrease to levels at or below
that of solar thermal cooling for both COP level vapor
compression systems. That is, given our assumptions, we
predict that solar PV-powered cooling will become more
cost eective than thermal-based systems going forward.
While the dierence in cost of the proposed systems represents an important factor in the decision of installing a
solar cooling system it is also important to consider the collector footprint or area necessary. Fig. 9 shows the projected areas for the discussed systems with the PV
systems typically requiring half of the area as a thermal
based system. Again this is almost entirely due to the
COP of the system. The electric systems all have high COPs
resulting in lower collector energy requirements than a
thermal system of the same load. Some of the disadvantage
in COP of the thermal systems is made up in the higher collection eciency of solar thermal collectors in comparison
to a PV system. This can especially be noted in the desiccant based system with a COP near 1 requiring nearly triple
the energy input of COP = 3 solar electric system but needing only about 1.6 times the footprint.
In addition to the importance of the economic cost the
environmental impact of the technologies needs to also
be considered. One metric that can be used is the amount
of carbon dioxide associated with each system. Table 2 presents the results for the total CO2 impact for each proposed
solar cooling system analyzed. The results of Table 2 show
the associated amount of CO2 needed for the production
and operation of the solar collection, storage, and refrigeration system (refrigerant impact only) based on the amount
of cooling energy provided. This shows total CO2 release

Fig. 9. Footprint of solar collector to meet 5-ton cooling load.

T. Otanicar et al. / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 12871299

1297

Table 2
Environmental impacts of proposed solar cooling components.
Storage (g CO2/
kW h cooling)

Direct eect (g CO2 eq/

kW h cooling)

Indirect Eect (g CO2/

kW h cooling)

18

261

18

131

0.76

16

87

263

0.57

21

116

351

0.62

19

106

323

0.45

27

147

444

System/component

COP

Collector (PV includes inverter)

(g CO2 eq/kW h cooling)

PV-electric (vapor
compression with
battery)
PV-electric (vapor
compression with
battery)
Flat plate thermal (Li Br
absorption)
Evacuated tube thermal
(NH3 absorption)
Flat plate thermal
(adsorption)
Flat plate thermal
(desiccant/evaporative)

12

per kW hth of cooling for solar electric cooling is less than

the other systems analyzed, even when the global warming
impact of the refrigerant is included. This is mainly due to
the high values of COP associated with vapor-compression
refrigeration resulting in smaller collectors and energy storage mechanisms. The impact of COP is also reected in the
comparison of the thermal systems since the highest COP
systems (absorption) result in the lowest values of CO2
impact. Additionally the indirect CO2 impact, resulting
from emissions if backup energy is needed, was found by
looking at the amount of CO2 released from electricity or
natural gas consumption. It should be noted that the proposed system would have enough storage capacity to not
require backup during normal operation but if periods of
low daytime irradiance occurred the resulting backup
energy to create cooling is captured by the indirect eect.
Although natural gas results in lower values of CO2 for a
given amount of energy in comparison to electricity, the
lower COP of the thermal-based cooling systems results
in larger indirect eects. The impact of CO2 is only one
metric for evaluating the environmental impact and it
should be noted that each technology has additional issues
resulting in a variety of environmental concerns.
5. Conclusions
The results of the economic and environmental analysis
of a variety of solar cooling schemes reveal some key
details regarding system choice. For solar electric cooling
the system cost is highly dependent on the system COP
when PV prices remain at the current levels, but when
prices are lowered the impact of COP becomes diminished.
For solar thermal cooling the cost of solar collection is
much lower as a percentage of the overall cost, but the cost
of the refrigeration system often represents a larger percentage of the cost. Additionally the costs for solar thermal
cooling are not projected to decrease as much as PV cooling over the next 20 years due to the relatively stable cost of
collection and storage. If the costs of refrigeration were to

come down as well as thermal refrigeration COP increases,

especially to values greater than 1, it could be expected that
solar thermal cooling costs would be competitive with solar
electric cooling costs. From an environmental standpoint
solar electric cooling, even with the associated impact of
refrigerants with global warming impact, have a lower
projected emission value of carbon dioxide per kW hth of
cooling than any of the thermal technologies. The major
reason for this is due to the much larger COP values associated with solar electric cooling. One additional favorable
aspect to solar electric cooling systems is the collector area
footprint. For solar PV systems, expected sizes in 2010 are
between 24 and 48 m2 depending on system COP. On the
other hand, solar thermal system footprints are expected to
be between 78 and 106 m2. Thus, if solar thermal systems
are to be cost-competitive by 2030, COP improvements
and/or thermal collector costs will need to see some considerably favorable shift(s) beyond current trends.
Acknowledgment
PEP gratefully acknowledges partial support provided
by Arizona Public Service, Inc.
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