A novel solar hybrid system, composed of linear Fresnel reflector (LFR) solar collectors, a single/double effect absorption chiller, a thermal storage tank with intermediate-temperature molten salt and assistant components, is investigated both theoretically and experimentally in this paper. Compared with conventional solar cooling system, this system is designed for operating with different modes under various solar irradiances and requirements of load. Under a typical meteorological day in summer condition, theoretical analysis on the performances of solar collectors, absorption chiller and the entire system employing MATLAB software, has been implemented. Meanwhile, an experimental system is built to validate the theoretical model. It is found that the simulation and test results have a good agreement with each other. For the solar collector with rectangle cavity receiver, under the highest temperature of 180°C, the average thermal efficiency of 38% can be obtained. For the absorption chiller, the operating mode automatically changes as the variation of hot water inlet temperature. The COP of the single/double effect can reach up to 0.7 and 1.2 under the single and double effect modes. Thermal storage tank designed for storing and releasing thermal energy can support the absorption chiller operate under the single effect for 2 hours. Besides, the experiment results show that this hybrid system can be available for a whole day in typical summer condition.