An increasing demand for small capacity air-conditioning appliances is being observed throughout Europe. Today this market is almost entirely covered by compression chillers. This technology produces a growing electricity peak-demand during the summer, especially in the sunny and hot southern countries.

Solar energy is one of the possible alternative energy sources for cooling systems. One of the biggest advantages of using solar energy as energy source is that the maximum energy is obtained when the cooling load is at its peak. The dominating technology of thermally driven chillers is based on absorption systems.

For this reasons Eurac is spending its effort in a monitoring project where the aim is to achieve practical knowleadge concerning design, control and operation of heat driven cooling technology system.

A solar cooling pilot-plant was set up in autumn 2004 at the premises of Ebner Energie Technik in South Tyrol, northern Italy.

The Wegracal_se15 absorption chiller integrated in a combined solar domestic hot water and space heating system - "combi-system" - meets the increasing demand for small capacity air-conditioning. Moreover, it exploits the excess solar energy production during summer.

The measurement campaign started in the last summer will continue for the whole 2006. The first results of this project were presented at the International Conference on Solar Air Conditioning in Bad Staffelstein (Germany) in october 2005 and a poster presentation will take place at the World Sustainable Energy Days Conference in Wels (Austria) in March 2006.