- Kuba Szczepanik, Institute for Advanced Technology & IrwinConsult
Growth in solar technologies has overlooked the potential for solar cooling to utilise Australia’s most abundant resource. Oftimes considered in hotter climates solar cooling is less commonly planned in temperate regions such as Melbourne. This paper presents selected results from earlier modelling of the performance of various solar cooling systems when serving a large healthcare building in Melbourne.
Having had access to detailed building loads & energy data including long-term-averaged weather & solar data the solar cooling model estimates performance of various installations over a year. Modelled systems all include absorption chillers to utilise solar energy, with selected results comparing installations of various collector types. The effects of a phase change thermal storage system are also presented including utilisation of advanced techniques for conductivity enhancement.
Simple payback, NPV and life cycle abatement costs are shown and compared for each system. Capital costs especially collector costs and auxiliary works, appear to remain a significant hurdle in achieving competitive financial results. Future carbon costs are likely to have a measurable effect on financial results and solar cooling has the potential to be competitive in a carbon trading context.
BIO:
Kuba Szczepanik is a sustainable energy and sustainable buildings professional with over nine years experience in renewable technologies and building energy efficiency spanning the private and public sectors, including research environments and though to consulting engineering. Professional experience ranges from industrial acoustics to carbon management, including research into phase-change thermal storage, and design/delivery of solutions such as solar-thermal, solar-cooling, cogeneration, photovoltaics, stack-ventilation and underfloor-air-distribution. Kuba is an enthusiastic supporter of renewable technologies and eagerly anticipates their increased update across the building, industrial and energy sectors.