Abstract
The rising demand for air conditioning units driven by climate change underscores the importance of using sustainable energy sources, which help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate environmental impact. The present work focuses on the design and construction of a solar air conditioning system by integrating photovoltaic panels or solar thermal collectors to power the cooling cycle, providing a sustainable and eco-friendly alternative to conventional systems. A solar air conditioning unit entails the design, integration, and performance evaluation of a system that harnesses solar energy to provide space cooling. This study focuses on the design and construction of a solar air conditioning unit for cooling a defined space, with performance evaluated under varying solar radiation levels and panel tilt angles. Thermal comfort parameters and power factors were analyzed to determine the system’s overall efficiency. Experiments were carried out under Dubai’s climatic conditions by varying the incident solar radiation from 700 to 1400 W/m2 and adjusting the panel inclination angle between 15° and 25° which determined the performance parameters and the thermal comfort. The unit achieved maximum values for moisture removal rate, thermal efficiency, and solar coefficient of performance at 0.74 g/s, 95%, and 1.03, respectively. Power ratios were observed to decrease with increasing incident radiation. A solar panel tilt angle of 25° yielded the highest moisture removal rate 0.78 g/s, solar coefficient of performance 1.1, and solar direct consumption ratio 0.61. Thermal comfort parameters, including the Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied (PPD), were calculated to be − 0.21 and 12.7%, respectively, both falling within acceptable comfort ranges.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Mendeley Data at DOI: https://doi.org/10.17632/ggnpp9wt48.1.
Abbreviations
- SRRR:
-
Solar radiation reception rate
- PTSP:
-
Poly tilted segmented panel
- ISRPI:
-
Incident solar radiation presiction index
- DASH:
-
Dual angle solar harvest
- PMV:
-
Predicted mean vote
- PPD:
-
Predicted percentage of dissatisfied
- CON R:
-
Condenser power ratio
- COP:
-
Coefficient of performance
- CR:
-
Compressor power ratio
- DBT:
-
Dry bulb temperature (ᵒC)
- DC:
-
Direct current
- ER:
-
Evaporator power ratio
- SPV:
-
Solar photovoltaic
- PV:
-
Photovoltaic
- RH:
-
Relative humidity
- SDCR:
-
Solar direct consumed ratio
- SF:
-
Solar fraction
- VCR:
-
Vapor compression refrigeration
- WBT:
-
Wet bulb temperature (°C)
- \(\dot{W}\) :
-
Power supplied to the compressor (W)
- \(\dot{{m}_{a}}\) :
-
Mass flow rate of air (kg/s)
- \(\dot{{m}_{c}}\) :
-
Condensation rate (g/s)
- \({W}_{1}\) :
-
Specific humidity at the inlet (g/kg)
- \({W}_{2}\) :
-
Specific humidity at the outlet (g/kg)
- \({\dot{Q}}_{C}\) :
-
Cooling effect (Watts)
- Pbattery :
-
Power consumed by battery (Watts)
- \({\eta }_{Thermal}\) :
-
Thermal efficiency (%)
- \({\eta }_{Cooling}\) :
-
Cooling efficiency (%)
- I:
-
Incident radiation (W/m2)
- As :
-
Surface area of the collector (m2)
- \({COP}_{Solar}\) :
-
Solar COP
- \({\dot{W}}_{C}\) :
-
Power consumed by compressor (Watts)
- \({\dot{W}}_{e}\) :
-
Power consumed by evaporator (Watts)
- \({\dot{W}}_{con}\) :
-
Power consumed by condenser (Watts)
- M:
-
Metabolic rate (W/m2)
- H:
-
Sensitive heat loss (W/m2)
- W:
-
Mechanical power (W/m2)
- Ec :
-
Heat exchange due to evaporation of skin (W/m2)
- Cres :
-
Heat exchange by convection (W/m2)
- Eres :
-
Heat exchange by evaporation (W/m2)
- fcl :
-
Clothing surface area factor which is equal to 1
- tcl :
-
Clothing surface temperature, ⁰C
- tr :
-
Mean radiant temperature, ⁰C
- ta :
-
Ambient temperature, ⁰C
- RH:
-
Relative humidity , %
- Pv :
-
Vapor pressure, Pa
- Pa :
-
Water vapor partial pressure, Pa
- AF:
-
Angle factor
- V:
-
Air velocity in m/s.
- X:
-
Independent variable
- Y:
-
Uncertainty intervals
- G:
-
Uncertainty function
- YG :
-
Total uncertanity
- \(\frac{\partial (\dot{{m}_{W}})}{\dot{{m}_{W}}}\) :
-
Uncertainty of condensation rate
- \(\frac{\partial ({\eta }_{Thermal})}{{\eta }_{Thermal}}\) :
-
Uncertainty of thermal efficiency
- \(\frac{\partial (SDCR)}{SDCR}\) :
-
Uncertainty of solar direct consumed ratio
- \(\frac{\partial ({\eta }_{Cooling})}{{\eta }_{Cooling}}\) :
-
Uncertainty of cooling efficiency
- \(\frac{\partial (SF)}{SF}\) :
-
Uncertainty of solar fraction
- 1:
-
Inlet
- 2:
-
Outlet
- a:
-
Air
- c:
-
Cooling
- C:
-
Compressor
- Con:
-
Condenser
- e:
-
Expansion
- G:
-
Uncertainty
- v:
-
Vapor
- cl:
-
Cloth
- res:
-
Exchange
- s:
-
Surface
- r:
-
Radiant
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Acknowledgements
This project work is carried out in the lab of School of Engineering and IT at MAHE Dubai.
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Open access funding provided by Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal. No funding was received for the above work.
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All authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript. Sampath Suranjan Salins performed the experiments and data collection. Shiva Kumar analyzed the results and prepared the manuscript. Krishna Prasad did the validation.
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Salins, S.S., Kumar, S. & Prasad, K. Sustainable cooling solutions in Dubai: the impact of incident radiation and panel angles on solar AC performance. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-36069-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-36069-1
