IEA Solar Heating and Cooling Programm - NachhaltigWirtschaften.at

IEA SHC Task 38 Solar Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Subtask A Report, Date: November 2010
1 Background
In the beginning the system was designed as a solar assisted heating system for two office
rooms, two apartments and a spa area. Furthermore the swimming pool is heated with the
solar energy. As a backup the hot water from a near biomass plant is used. The solar cooling
concept was added to the system in a later planning stage. Therefore the absorption chiller
as well as the wet cooling tower was placed outside the building in the garden.
The solar cooling plant at the Bachler GmbH training and office building was installed in
spring 2007. It is delivering its cooling load to the office trough concrete core activation. This
plant was built as an attachment to an existing solar combi system.
Figure 1: Exterior view of the office building in Gröbming, Styria [Bachler]
The system is installed without a conventional backup including a 12 kW Pink absorption
chiller working with ammonia/water. The 46 m 2 solar panels are flat plate collectors (type
Goliath from Neuma-Solar) integrated in the façade and also placed in front of the building. In
the utility room three 1500 liter hot storages as well as all auxiliary hydraulics are placed. The
absorption chiller together with the wet cooling tower is positioned outside the house. The hot
water of the solar thermal collectors is used for domestic hot water production, for warming
the water of the swimming pool and in the heating season it is also used to provide space
heating combined with local district heating.
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