Technical-Economic Analysis of Steam Double Effect Absorption Chiller-Heaters Equipped with Solar Heat Pipe System

The aim of this research is to indicate a steam double effect chiller-heater equipped with solar heat pipe in a certain space with the area of 975 m2 located in Tehran, which is currently equipped with a direct-fired single effect absorption chiller-heater. Thereafter , the most obvious differences of the two chiller-heater systems are compared: the solar cooling system increases coefficient of performance as high as 0.54, decreases CO2 dissemination by 829 tons in each year, and reduces energy consumption by 1552.42 MWh/Yr. Economic analysis of the two systems using break-even-point showed that the use of solar system is attractive in applications that have excess thermal energy, and the conversion of this energy to higher value energy markets is to be more profitable than absorption gas-fired system from 13th year on. Keywords: Technical-economic analysis, energy optimization, solar chiller, absorption chiller-heater, solar heat pipe.