Technical engineering design, thermal experimental and economic simulation analysis of absorption cooling/heating systems in China

In low temperature heat sources driven cooling/heating absorption systems, there are many equipment combinations. Usually, there are contradictions between the equipment efficiency and their economy; for example, the high efficiency-solar collector usually has a high price. So, in this paper, ten absorption cooling/heating systems with different heat sources and different absorption technologies are investigated for technical-economic-thermal analysis. The heat sources are flat plate solar collector, evacuated U-pipe solar collector and middle-temperature high efficiency solar collector and waste heat. The absorption chillers are 1-effect LiBr absorption chiller, 2-effect LiBr absorption chiller, novel 1-2 effect LiBr absorption chiller and novel high efficiency-heat-recovery ammonia water absorption system. The results show that 2-effect absorption chiller with heat source of waste heat is the most optimized choice, which lowest payback period is about 1.9 years. The second choices are the 2-effect LiBr absorption system with novel middle-temperature solar collectors/natural gases and the novel ammonia water absorption system with waste heat sources.