First results of a pilot installation of a solar thermally driven cold store

Within the scope of the project AgroKühl, a pilot plant of a solar thermally driven cold store has been developed and installed near Freiburg in Germany. The system consists of a linear concentrating Fresnel collector system with mirror area of 88 m2, an ammonia-water absorption chiller of 12 kW cooling capacity with an integrated cooling tower, two ice storages of 52 kWh latent storage capacity and a cold store of 100 m3. With the aim to guarantee observation of quasi-realistic system behaviour and to avoid restrictions in the operation, the cold store was equipped with computer-controlled fan heaters and humidifiers. This allows the emulation of sensible and latent loads in the room. The system was installed in summer 2012 and since August 2012 it is in continuous operation during summer period. This publication describes the system in detail, summarizes the first operational results and highlights optimization potential of the plant.