ENERGY PERFORMANCES OF A RADIANT CEILING SYSTEM SUPPLIED BY SOLAR THERMAL COLLECTORS AND ABSORPTION CHILLER

The energy performance of a radiant ceiling system used for the heating and cooling of an open space environment with a surface area of 800 m² and an air-conditioned volume equal to 3200 m³ is presented. In winter, the radiant ceiling is supplied by an integrated field of solar collectors withan auxiliary source. During summer, the solar collectors are used to supply the generator of a closed cycle simple effect absorption machine which produces, along with a traditional auxiliaryheat pump, the refrigerated flow rate for radiant ceilings. The control system regulates the temperature and the supplied flow rate of the radiant ceilings with different logics during winterand summer periods, intervening directly on the solar circuit. The entire building-plant system wassimulated with the TRNSYS code using climatic data for the location of Cosenza (Lat. 39.18N) in order to identify the energy performance varying the collectors surface and storage volume.