Review of solar cooling methods and thermal storage options

Power shortage and unstable power supply remain serious problems. Conventional cooling technologies that utilize harmful refrigerants consume more energy and cause peak loads leading to negative environmental impacts. As the world grapples with the energy and environmental crisis, there is an urgent...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Renewable & sustainable energy reviews 2011-08, Vol.15 (6), p.3220-3228
Main Authors: Chidambaram, L.A., Ramana, A.S., Kamaraj, G., Velraj, R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Absorption cooling
Applied sciences
Cooling
Cooling loads
Demand
Energy
environmental impact
Exact sciences and technology
Latent heat thermal storage
Phase change material
Refrigerants
researchers
Shortages
Solar collectors
Solar cooling
Solar cooling Absorption cooling Solar collectors Thermal energy storage Phase change material Latent heat thermal storage
Solar energy
storage
temperature profiles
Thermal energy storage
Thermal storage
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Summary:Power shortage and unstable power supply remain serious problems. Conventional cooling technologies that utilize harmful refrigerants consume more energy and cause peak loads leading to negative environmental impacts. As the world grapples with the energy and environmental crisis, there is an urgent need to develop and promote environmentally benign sustainable cooling technologies. Solar cooling is one such promising technology, given the fact that solar energy is the cheapest and widely available renewable energy that matches the cooling load requirements. Thermal storage systems are essential to overcome the disadvantage of the intermittent nature of solar energy and variation in cooling demand. The enhanced utilization of solar energy and other consequences of thermal storage integrated systems have gained the attention of researchers in the recent years. This paper reviews research articles in the field of solar cooling techniques, solar collectors, storage methods and their integration, along with performance improvement studies reported using thermal stratification and cascaded thermal storage systems.
ISSN:1364-0321
1879-0690
DOI:10.1016/j.rser.2011.04.018