Solar Desiccant Air Conditioning System and Its Performance in the United Arab Emirates

The extensive use of air conditioning for indoor cooling in buildings represents a major part of the electricity consumption in many parts of the world including the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Asia. With the very high ambient temperatures occurring particularly in summer, air conditioning systems consume approximately 50% of the peak power load requirements. Exploiting renewable energy in the field of air conditioning is an appropriate alternative to achieve comfortable surroundings without creating harmful environmental effects. In the Middle East and particularly in the United Arab Emirates, it seems that there is a high potential for using solar air conditioning schemes. This paper will outline a suitable solar-assisted desiccant cooling technology. By defining the performance term of solar desiccant air conditioning, some effective parameters on system cooling behavior, such as solar irradiation and humidity, are considered. An illustrative example will be presented to show that exploiting solar desiccant cooling system is feasible in the United Arab Emirates. The example is for an occupied residential home in Abu Dhabi. According to the geographical and meteorological data of this city, solar gains, infiltration gains, internal gains, and convective cooling load for the assumed building is evaluated first. Then by using total sensible cooling load and latent heat, total cooling load is calculated. Lastly two appropriate existing solar desiccant cooling plants are offered to provide the required total cooling load for studied home.