Testing the performance of a solar energy cooling system in Baghdad city

Abstract

Renewable energy resources have become a promissory alternative to overcome the problems related to atmospheric pollution and limited sources of fossil fuel energy. The technologies in the field of renewable energy are used also to improve the ventilation and cooling in buildings by using the solar chimney and heat exchanger. This study addresses the design, construction and testing of a cooling system by using the above two techniques. The aim was to study the effects of weather conditions on the efficiency of this system which was installed in Baghdad for April and May 2020. The common weather in these months is hot in Baghdad. The test room of the design which has a size of 1 m3 was situated to face the geographical south. The test room is thermally insulated and connected to a solar chimney which generates a convection current to draw the air out of the room through a heat exchanger. The heat exchanger was submerged in a water tank of 2 m length, 1 m width and 1 m height. It was also covered with a layer of soil mixture with a thickness of 10 cm. The experiment simulates the natural conditions of a shallow water surface, connected to the room from the other side. The study results revealed that the air temperature inside the test room was lower than that of the ambient air outside. Pearson correlation coefficient showed that there was a strong direct relationship between solar radiation, temperature and wind speed from one side and the cooling efficiency from the other side. Also, there was a negative correlation between relative humidity and cooling efficiency.