Santa Clara, California, community center commercial solar demonstration progress report. Six months data acquisition and analysis of cooling performance

Technical Report · Wed Mar 01 00:00:00 EST 1978

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6563920· OSTI ID:6563920

Niemeyer, W.; Ayraud, S.; Hemsch, M.; Brown, F.

The Santa Clara Community Center is a 27,000 sq. ft. one-story building set in a mediterranean climate. The peak summer cooling load is estimated to be 5.9 x 10/sup 6/ Btu/day and is roughly twice the peak winter heating load. The solar-driven hydronic system includes 7,085 sq. ft. of double-glazed flat plate collectors with a selective coating, two 25-ton ARKLA absorption chillers, a 50,000 gallon stratified cold storage tank and a 10,000 gallon hot storage tank. The solar system is designed to satisfy roughly 80% of the annual thermal energy requirements. A boiler is used for backup. The system is well instrumented and has been providing operational data including detailed energy balance information since April 1977. Data for one complete cooling season has been obtained. Detailed results are presented in this report. The data acquisition system used has ''event sense'' capability. Hence, the collected data include the periods of operation in each of the system modes. This capability makes it possible to calculate the auxiliary electrical and gas consumption of the present solar system and to compare it to the estimates for the original non-solar HVAC design which used vapor compression chillers. Preliminary evaluation indicates that the present system during the cooling season consumes roughly the same amount of fossil fuel energy as the original non-solar design.

• Research Organization: Santa Clara Univ., CA (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: EY-76-C-03-1083
• OSTI ID: 6563920
• Report Number(s): SAN-1083-78/1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
SOLAR COOLING SYSTEMS
DATA ACQUISITION SYSTEMS
DESIGN
OPERATION
SOLAR HEATING SYSTEMS
ABSORPTION REFRIGERATION CYCLE
BUILDINGS
CALIFORNIA
COOLING LOAD
FLAT PLATE COLLECTORS
HEAT STORAGE
HEATING LOAD
PERFORMANCE
TANKS
VAPOR COMPRESSION REFRIGERATION CYCLE
CONTAINERS
ENERGY STORAGE
HEATING SYSTEMS
NORTH AMERICA
SOLAR COLLECTORS
STORAGE
USA
WESTERN REGION
140901* - Solar Thermal Utilization- Space Heating & Cooling