Optimization and life cycle analysis of solar-powered absorption chiller designed for a small house in the United Arab Emirates using evacuated tube technology

Due to the significant increase in the energy demand, mainly driven by air conditioning electrical loads in residential and industrial sectors of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to climate change and population increase. The use of solar cooling technology in air conditioning systems becomes crucial. In this paper, solar-powered absorption cooling system based on a LiBr–H2O was simulated and optimized for a house in UAE. The TRANSYS software was used for the simulations of the house under real-life conditions throughout the worst week scenarios. The Coefficient of performance (COP) of the proposed system was found to be 0.793. The optimization results showed that the latitude of the UAE is the optimum tilt angle for the evacuated tube, while the 40 m2 and 1 m3 are optimum for the area of the evacuated tube and the volume of a hot water storage tank at 0.73 solar fractions. Furthermore, the life cycle analysis results show that the solar-powered absorption cooling system would cost 43.2%, consume the energy of 8.5%, and produces a carbon footprint of 8.7% of the cost, energy consumption, and production of the carbon footprint of the typical vapor compression system, respectively.