Renewable Energy 172 (2021) 1145e1153

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Study on matching characteristics of photovoltaic disturbance and

refrigeration compressor in solar photovoltaic direct-drive air
conditioning system
Guoliang Li a, Youhua Han a, Ming Li a, *, Xi Luo a, Yongfeng Xu a, b, Yunfeng Wang a,
Ying Zhang a
a
Solar Energy Research Institute, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, 650500, China
b
College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing, 314001, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper presents a 3 HP solar direct-drive photovoltaic air conditioning system which operates
Received 31 July 2020 without batteries, ice thermal storage is used to store solar energy. The refrigeration compressor will
Received in revised form suffer from loss of power even cannot startup or shut down if the PV power generation suddenly fluc-
20 February 2021
tuates. In the case of the solar radiation fluctuations to keep the system running continuously and
Accepted 22 March 2021
Available online 26 March 2021
steadily, that requires a proper system design to match the power consumption of solar air conditioning
system with a proper PV capacity, matching an adaptive controller and a suited compressor simulta-
neously. Solar air conditioners with different capacity of PV panel, with and without MPPT controller and
Keywords:
Solar refrigeration
different types compressors were built and tested outdoors to experimentally investigate the matching
Distributed PV characteristics of photovoltaic disturbance and refrigeration compressor. The experimental results of the
Ice storage system with a variable speed compressor and a MPPT controller have shown good ice-making perfor-
Variable speed compressor mance and reliable operation as well as a great improvement in the available solar energy. Finally, the
Matching characteristics highest system COP reached 0.289 when the cumulative daily total radiation was 18.2 MJ/m2 in Kunming,
China. The research work shows that the direct drive ice storage by solar photovoltaic system has a
certain application prospect in the regions where the electricity is tight but requiring cooling.
© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction savings considering 28 households for up to 2 years in Australia [4].

Nowadays, the utilization of renewable energy has attracted
much attention by worldwide researchers, which plays a vital role
to reduce the usage of fossil fuel and alleviate the severe global
climate problems [1]. A recent survey in Ghana concluded that the
electricity consumption for air conditioning reached 60e80% of the
electricity consumption of offices and commercial buildings [2].
Especially in the hot and remote areas with no electricity or power
shortage, the continuous cooling is in great demand to provide
comfortable living environment, as well as preserve vegetables and
fruits for temporary storage, these areas usually have good solar
energy resources. In this regard, solar refrigeration technology is
considered to be one of the most promising innovative technolo-
gies [3], which was proved to have the most potential for economic
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: lmllldy@126.com (M. Li).
Due to the rapid decline of photovoltaic (PV) cost and the common
goal of relieving energy crisis [5], solar PV systems are more widely
used than solar thermal systems in urban residential buildings and
rural houses [6]. According to Best and Pilatowski [7], vapor
compression refrigeration driven by the electricity generated from
PV system have strong market pull, with the advantages of cost
effectiveness and high performance.
To store solar energy and improve the stability under the
intermittent irradiance influence, a rechargeable battery bank was
usually applied in off-grid PV cooling as a buffer and storage
installation [8e10]. However, it caused high investment and oper-
ating costs. Moreover, its maintenance costs greatly increased and
the lifetime greatly decreased due to the influence of intermittent
irradiance [11]. The potential environmental pollution was
considered to be a serious problem in developing countries because
battery recycling technology was not advanced and the economic
efficiency was low [12]. Additionally, large energy losses occurred

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2021.03.110
0960-1481/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
G. Li, Y. Han, M. Li et al.
Nomenclature
Cw specific heat capacity of water, J$kg1$K1
Ci specific heat capacity of ice, J$kg1$K1
G instantaneous irradiance, W$m2
hw latent heat of melting, J/kg
mw masses of water, kg
mi masses of ice, kg
Qref total electrical supply of the refrigerator, MJ
QT total storage cooling capacity, MJ
q daily cumulative total irradiance, MJ$m2
Sc total area of the PV array, m2
Tbw Tew initial and final water temperatures,
C
Tei initial ice temperature, K
Subscript
bw initial water temperature
due to the multistage energy conversion process (i.e., solar-
electricity-storage-refrigeration) when a rechargeable battery
bank was used as the storage unit. As a result, PV-driven air con-
ditioners face the challenges of low performance, high initial in-
vestment, and complex configurations for practical applications,
especially large-scale application. Thus, seeking substitutes for the
battery bank has been one of urgent tasks to store solar energy.
The thermal energy storage methods present promising pros-
pects to substitute the battery bank, such as phase change materials
(PCMs) and ice thermal storage. The thermal stratification charac-
teristics of PCMs were investigated [13]. Ref. [14] modelled the
performance of a vapor compression air conditioner with the ice
thermal storage system and a PCM tank, respectively. The
comparative results showed that the power consumption and CO2
emission in the system with the ice thermal energy storage were
4.59% and 17.8% lower than those in the conventional system, and
were 7.58% and 27.2% lower than those in the system with the PCM
[14]. Ref. [15] stated that by using a 0
C refrigerator and 21
C
freezer for the storage of excess solar power from a PV system, a
maximum energy saving could approach 85% compared to that in
the reference system [15]. It can be inferred that an efficient way to
replace the battery storage for the PV-driven air conditioner would
be promising for the commercialization, of which the ice thermal
energy storage was a good optional choice.
At present, PV direct-driven compressor in the air conditioning
system with no battery bank has been reported in some literatures.
A developing project funded by the Danish Energy Agency and
conducted by the Danish Technological Institute started in 1999. It
aims to develop a PV powered vaccine cooler without battery back-
up [16]. A controller was used to improve the compressor perfor-
mance during the start-up and steady-state operation under
various irradiance levels, and 17 kg ice was produced under the
sunny day by Petros J [17]. Huang et al. conducted experiments on
air conditioners with different PV sizes, battery capacities and
compressor powers. The results indicated that the suitable design
value of the ratio between the maximum PV power and the load
power was 3 [18]. A method for the simulation of solar driven vapor
compression refrigeration system with variable speed compressor
under the real weather condition was proposed but the MPPT
controller was not considered [19]. The effect of operating pres-
sures of evaporator and condenser on the performance of directly
coupled variable speed solar refrigeration system was studied by
Elias M. Salilih [20]. The ice thermal storage for the PV driven air
conditioner with reduced batteries was explored in our previous
1146
Renewable Energy 172 (2021) 1145e1153
ew final water temperature
ei initial ice temperature
i ice
total total
w water
Acronyms
AC alternating current
COP coefficient of performance
DC direct current
EER energy efficiency ratio
PCMs phase change materials
PPE PV-to-compressor power efficiency
OSR operation stability ratio
MPPT maximum power point tracking
work [21,22]. It proved the feasibility of the ice thermal storage,
where the batteries were only used as a buffer and the system
average energy efficiency could reach 7.65% [21]. Furthermore, the
impedance matching strategy model of the PV-driven cooling
system without a battery was analysed and validated [22]. In
summary, some conclusions on the battery-free photovoltaic
refrigeration system from the aspects of system design, simulation
calculation and experimental characteristics have been reported.
However, many systems have just been studied using a laboratory-
scale prototype [23]. If the configuration of the system is increased,
the dynamic matching relationship between the output of the PV
array and the load of the compressor must be considered.
The discontinuity of solar energy in solar powered system is a
fatal problem. Therefore, for improving the efficiency and operating
stability of the solar PV powered air conditioner, this paper focuses
on the matching characteristics between the photovoltaic distur-
bance and the direct-driven compressor, which including capacity
of PV panel, MPPT controller, suitable compressor and solar irra-
diance. Besides, the ice thermal storage was achieved in the system,
to eliminate the battery bank, and reduce the initial investment and
operation cost. Moreover, the maximum power point tracking
(MPPT) technology with frequency conversion was designed to
ensure steady operation of the compressor directly driven by the
distributed PV system. The matching performance of the system
was tested with different power ratios between the PV array and
compressor under various levels of the daily cumulative irradiance
in Kunming, China. In addition, the optimized system design pa-
rameters were obtained by evaluating the performance. The
research work can provide references for the study of the directly
solar PV-driven cooling systems.
2. System description
The PV-driven air conditioner system consists of five parts: a PV
array, a control system, an ice-making system, a variable speed
pump and a heat exchanger. The PV array was connected in series
with 12e16 monocrystalline silicon modules at the optimal tilt
angle (i.e., 30
) towards southwest. The control system consists of a
general-purpose inverter and a MPPT controller. The controller
with the MPPT technique was used for the PV-compressor system
under various irradiance to improve the photoelectric conversion
efficiency of the PV array. The ice-making system includes a vari-
able speed compressor with a frequency range of 3e60 Hz, a
condenser, a liquid storage device, a capillary, an evaporator, an ice
G. Li, Y. Han, M. Li et al. Renewable Energy 172 (2021) 1145e1153

thermal storage tank, and a gas-liquid separator. A schematic dia-

gram of the PV-driven air conditioner is shown in Fig. 1, and the Tð
bw " Tðbw ð0 #
parameters of the main components are listed in Table 1. QT ¼ Cw mw dT þ ðCw mi ÞdT þ mi hwi þ Ci mi dT (1)
The data measurements were as shown in Fig. 1. Specifically, Tew 0 Tei
fourteen temperatures were measured using type-T thermocou-
ples, and a FLUKE 2638A data acquisition system recorded the data where, Tbw - the initial average water temperature, K; Tew - the final
once per minute. A HTSOLAR300N solar PV performance analyser average water temperature, K; Cw - the specific heat capacity of
was applied to measure the electricity parameters every 5 s. The water, J/(kg$K); Ci - the specific heat capacity of ice, J/(kg$K); mw -
solar irradiance and ambient temperature were measured by a the final remaining water mass, kg; mi - the mass of the ice, kg; hw -
meteorological station near the PV array. The liquid level of the ice the latent heat of the ice-to-water phase transition, J/kg; Tei - the
storage tank rises gradually with the freezing process of the final average ice supercooled temperature, K.
immersed evaporator coil. The liquid level difference of the ice The PV-to-compressor power efficiency (PPE), is used to eval-
storage tank and the total amount of overflow water collected uate the performance of photovoltaic direct drive compressor
during the ice making process are measured and weighed. Then, system, which is defined as the ratio of compressor energy con-
the ice making mass is calculated according to the mass of ice and sumption to photovoltaic array output energy. The expression is:
water, as well as their own density and volume. The parameters of
the testing instruments in the experimental system can be seen Qref
from Table 2.
PPE ¼ (2)
qSc

where, Qref - the total electrical supply of the refrigerator, MJ; q - the
3. Evaluation of the system performance daily cumulative total irradiance during the refrigeration processes,
MJ/m2; Sc - the total area of the PV array, m2.
The performance of photovoltaic direct-drive ice storage air The refrigeration energy efficiency ratio (EER) can be expressed
conditioning system is evaluated from the aspects of operation as:
efficiency and operation stability in this paper. The operation effi-
ciency includes PV-to-compressor Power Efficiency (PPE), Refrig- QT
EER ¼ (3)
erator Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER) and System Coefficient of Qref
Performance (COP). Photovoltaic direct drive system is vulnerable
The coefficient of performance (COP) is used to evaluate the
to weather conditions, so, the frequency conversion operation
performance of distributed photovoltaic ice storage air condition-
stability ratio (OSR) is an important standard to evaluate the per-
ing system and can be expressed as:
formance of the system.
The total energy storage by ice includes the sensible heat of QT
water and the capacity of the ice. The capacity of the ice includes COP ¼ (4)
qSc
the sensible heat of water before the water turns to ice, the phase
change latent heat of converting water to ice and the sensible heat To reflect the operation performance of the compressor, the
of supercooling with ice. The total storage cooling capacity can be operation stability ratio (OSR) was defined as the ratio of the steady
expressed as follows: operating time when the frequency of the compressor was more

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the PV-driven air conditioner.

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G. Li, Y. Han, M. Li et al. Renewable Energy 172 (2021) 1145e1153

Table 1
Parameters of the components.

Component Model Value

PV module SM572-190 Pm: 190 W; Voc: 44.5 V; Isc: 5.52 A;

Vmp: 36.5 V; Imp: 5.21 A
Inverter ACS510 Uin (DC): 400e800 V; Uout (AC): 0e480 V;
Iin (DC): 0e9.4 A; Iout (AC): 0e9.4 A
Ice-making system QCS-F11C Input: 3 HP (2250 W);
Refrigeration capacity: 7200 W
Refrigerant R22 Molecular formula: CHClF2; Boiling temperature:
40.82
C; Critical temperature: 96.15
C
Ice thermal storage tank / Volume: 0.98 m3; Radius: 1.35 m; Height: 0.8 m
Variable speed pump MHI202-1/10/E/3-380-50-2 Input: 550 W, 380 V, 1.1 A; Qmax: 5 m3/h;
Hmax: 10 m; f: 3e50/60 Hz
Heat exchanger FP-170LZ Input: 98 W; Cooling capacity: 11.50 kW;
Fan: 1700 m3/h

In the daytime, the PV array converts solar energy into DC electric power. Then, the inverter control system converts the DC electric power to three-phase AC electric
power with adjustable amplitude under various irradiance conditions to drive the compressor. In the refrigeration cycle, the refrigerant (R22) is transported by an
ice-making machine with a three-phase AC compressor. The water in the tank freezes on the surface of the immersion evaporator and the cooling energy is stored
with ice and freezing water. When the cooling energy is demanded, the ice-cold water is pumped from the ice thermal storage tank to the heat exchanger by the
variable-speed pump, and thereby goes back to the tank for the next cycle.

Table 2
Parameters of the instruments in the experimental system.

Instrument Model Range Accuracy

Meteorological station TYD-ZS2 Irradiance: 0e2000 W/m2 ±5%

Temperature: 100-100
C ±0.5%
Thermocouples Type-T 200-350
C ±0.4%
Pressure sensor UNIK5000 0-3 MP ±0.2%
Liquid level pressure transducer PB8100CNT 0e30 kPa ±0.5%
Electronic platform scale TCS 0e150 kg 10g, ±0.1%
Electromagnetic flowmeter YOKOGAWA- SE202MM 0e15 m3/h ±0.01 m3/h
Solar PV performance analyser HT Solar 300N Voltage: 0e1000 V ±0.1 V
Current: 0e20 A ±0.001 A
Power: 0e9.9 kW ±1 W
Power factor: 0.20e1.00 ±0.01

than 30 Hz to the daily total operating time. It can be expressed as: 4. Results and discussion

P
j Dts;j
The effects of the configuration parameters were tested by the
OSR ¼ (5) abovementioned PV-driven air conditioner in our lab. The config-
Dttotal
uration parameters concerned the PV capacity, the controller with
where, ts,j - the steady operating time when the frequency of the and without MPPT, compressor types, and various solar irradiance.
compressor was more than 30 Hz, h; ttotal - the daily total operating
time of the compressor, h.
4.1. The PV array size
The standard measurement uncertainty uA is determined by the
average value of the standard deviation. In other cases un-
Since different PV array capacities correspond to different power
certainties of uB are used. The experimental values in this paper are
for the compressor, the characteristics of the system were tested
all instantaneous values, the data concerning the accuracy is taken
under three typical weather conditions. Specifically, the experi-
from the manufacturer’s specifications, calibration datasheets, and
ments were performed on the 28th, 29th, and 1st of November,
uncertainties assigned to reference data [24]. The details and ac-
2018 in Kunming. The cumulative total irradiances were of
curacy of each measurement equipment were shown in Table 2. The
22.23 MJ/m2, 21.26 MJ/m2, and 19.95 MJ/m2, respectively; and the
following equation (7) was applied to determine the propagation of
average ambient temperatures were 15.14
C, 15.24
C, and 16.14
C,
uncertainty of the calculated variable y, based on the uncertainties
respectively. The design parameter of power ratio is defined as the
uxi on each measurement xi:
ratio of the maximum power of the photovoltaic array to the rated
power of the compressor, which is used to describe the power
accuracy
mB ¼ pffiffiffi (6) matching relationship between the photovoltaic input and the
3 compressor load. The rated speed of variable frequency compressor
is 3000 r/min and the maximum speed is 3600 r/min when the
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi refrigerant charge is normal and the operating frequency reaches
u  2
uX vy 52 Hz. The rated power of 3 HP compressor is maintained at
my ¼ t m2xi (7)
vxi 2.25 kW under the ideal working condition. The three PV input
i
powers are 2.28 kW (12 modules), 2.66 kW (14 modules), 3.04 kW
Accordingly, the uncertainty calculations of the evaluation pa- (16 modules), correspondingly, the power ratios of the PV-to-
rameters such as PPE, Qt, EER, COP remain within the range of 2.91%, compressor system are 1.01, 1.18 and 1.35, respectively.
0.24%, 0.47%, 2.90%, respectively. Fig. 2 shows the DC output voltage and current of the PV array
1148
G. Li, Y. Han, M. Li et al.
Fig. 2. DC output voltage and current of the PV array with different power ratios.
with different power ratios. The results indicate that the DC output
voltage of the PV array increases with the increase of the power
ratio, namely the PV capacities, while its DC output current the
array decreases with the increase of the power ratio. The reason is
that the PV array was connected in series. Moreover, the DC output
voltage of the PV array was only minimally changed because of the
characteristic that it was only minimally affected by ambient
temperature and irradiance [22].
As more PV modules were connected to directly drive the same
load (the power ratio of PV-to-compressor was increased), the
magnitude of the voltage of the PV array increased, and the
magnitude of the current of the PV array decreased. The DC output
current of the PV array began to increase as the irradiance increased
(and vice versa) and remained constant when the operation power
of the compressor increased to the maximum power (i.e., the rated
power). The maximum DC output currents of the PV array were
4.605 A, 3.852 A, and 3.386 A, and the corresponding power ratios
of the PV-to-compressor system were 1.01, 1.18 and 1.35. The
maximum and minimum output powers of the PV array were
1.85 kW and 0.26 kW, respectively. However, the compressor
stopped when the instantaneous irradiance was less than 187 W/
m2, 156 W/m2 and 100 W/m2. Therefore, more PV modules would
increase the outage of the compressor due to the lower instanta-
neous irradiance. Besides, more PV modules would decrease the
solar energy utilization ratio because the maximum power is
limited, and the superfluous solar irradiance cannot be utilized.
The PPE and refrigeration EER of the PV-driven air conditioner
under different PV capacities are shown in Fig. 3. The PPE increased
with the decrease of the PV capacity, and the maximum PPE was
Fig. 3. PPE, refrigeration EER, OSR of the compressor and the COP of the solar PV cooling system under different PV capacities.
1149
Renewable Energy 172 (2021) 1145e1153
0.13 at 2.28 kW for the PV array with 12 PV modules. In addition,
due to the dual influences of the ice supercooled temperature and
compressor frequency conversion operation, the refrigeration EER
changed slightly. Fig. 3 also shows the OSR of the compressor and
the COP of the PV-driven air conditioner under different PV ca-
pacities. The OSR increased with the increase of the PV capacity,
and the OSR was only 0.562 when the PV capacity was 2.28 kW,
which corresponded to the power ratio was 1.01. The OSR was 0.827
when the PV capacity was 3.04 kW, which corresponded to the
power ratio was 1.35, and the OSR improvement was 47.2% relative
to the power ratio was 1.01. In general, a reduced PV capacity would
improve the COP of the system but reduce the OSR of the
compressor. Finally, the highest COP reached 0.284 when the power
ratio was 1.01, which improves 39.2% compared with that the po-
wer ratio was 1.35.
4.2. The MPPT controller
Fig. 4 shows the variations of the operating characteristics
without and with the MPPT controller. The available range of the
instantaneous irradiance can be short and the photoelectric con-
version efficiency of PV array was low for the general-purpose
inverter without MPPT controller (Fig. 4(a)). Furthermore, the
compressor failed to start when the instantaneous irradiance was
less than 445 W/m2, the DC output power of the PV array (i.e., the
input power of the general-purpose inverter) and the operating
power of the compressor (i.e., the AC output power of the general-
purpose inverter) did not vary when instantaneous irradiance
changed. The reason is that the DC output power of the PV array
G. Li, Y. Han, M. Li et al. Renewable Energy 172 (2021) 1145e1153

the input powers and the output power of the control system, were
86.3 W and 59.5 W, respectively. Moreover, the power consumption
of the control systems with the MPPT controller increased as the
instantaneous irradiance level increases. Because the power con-
sumption of the IGBT model increased, which was the power in-
tegrated module of the control systems, the output power of the
control system (i.e., the operating power of the compressor)
increased as the instantaneous irradiance level increased.
Specifically, the PPE values of the systems with and without the
MPPT controller are shown in Fig. 5. There were 12 min between
two plotted points due to the large error in the PPE that would be
produced in a short period of time if the instantaneous irradiance
sharply changed. The most obvious difference between the control
systems with and without the MPPT controller was that the PPE of
the control system with the MPPT controller was always higher
than that of the control system without the MPPT controller. The
PPE with the MPPT controller was always equal to or greater than
0.105, with an average of 0.124, which was an improvement of
81.7% compared with the average PPE of the control system without
the MPPT controller of 0.068.

4.3. The compressor

The compressor is a core component that converts electric en-

ergy into heat for the PV-driven air conditioner with ice thermal
storage. Therefore, a suitable compressor is critical to improve the
stability and efficiency of the system without batteries in case of the
irradiance change. Such distributed PV power systems are strongly
influenced by unbalanced three-phase loads because the load of a
distribution system feeder is inherently unbalanced due to the
vastly unequal single-phase loads and the asymmetrical spacing of
the three-phase stators [25]. To analyse the influence of various
irradiance levels on the compressor, two different types compres-
sors were installed in the ice-making system with the MPPT
controller. The parameters of the 3 HP scroll compressors are
shown in Table 3.
Fig. 4. Variations of the operating power: (a) without the MPPT controller; (b) with the The DC output power of the PV array (i.e., the input power of the
MPPT controller.
inverter) and the operating power of the compressor (i.e., the
output power of the inverter) for the two different compressors are
without the MPPT controller is too low to drive the three-phase AC shown in Fig. 6. The two experiments were conducted from 9:10 to
compressor, which operated continuously. The DC power of the PV 17:20 in two sunny days on 15th Mar, 2017 and 14th of Mar, 2018, of
array and the three-phase output power of the inverter were which the daily cumulative total irradiances were 23.68 MJ/m2 and
approximately 1.16 kW and 1.11 kW, respectively. The compressor 22.28 MJ/m2, respectively. It shows that the average input power of
stopped even when the irradiance was greater than 445 W/m2
because a sudden irradiance decline caused an outage, and the
stopping period was 35 min to protect the compressor from mul-
tiple stopping and starting in short time in the case of intermittent
irradiance.
Fig. 4 (b) shows that the compressor started to run and never
stopped when the irradiance was greater than 148 W/m2 when
using the MPPT controller. The DC power of the PV array (i.e., the
input power of the general-purpose inverter) and the operating
power of the AC compressor (i.e., the output power of the general-
purpose inverter) varied when instantaneous irradiance changed.
And the output power reached the maximum (i.e., the rated power
of the compressor) when the irradiance exceeded 828 W/m2
because the maximum power of the compressor was limited. The
maximum power of the PV array and the three-phase output power
of the inverter were approximately 1.84 kW and 1.78 kW, respec-
tively. Therefore, during the cooling process, there would be two
more hours of solar energy (148e445 W/m2) to drive the
compressor when using the MPPT controller than without the
MPPT controller. The average power consumptions of the control Fig. 5. Performances comparison of the control system with and without the
systems with and without the MPPT controller, which differed in controller.

1150
G. Li, Y. Han, M. Li et al.
Table 3
Parameters of the compared 3 HP scroll compressors.
Unit Model Refrigerant
Variable speed compressor 303DHV-47D2 R22
Ordinary compressor YW75A1G-100 R22
Fig. 6. The operating power of the ordinary compressor and the variable speed compressor.
the inverter was 2222.9 W and that the average output power of the
inverter was 1145.2 W for the ordinary compressor. Whereas, they
were 1822.2 W and 1755.4 W for the variable speed compressor,
respectively. The average power consumptions of the inverter with
the loads of the ordinary compressor and variable speed
compressor were 1077.7 W and 66.8 W, respectively. Their daily
power consumptions were 9.57 kWh and 14.26 kWh, respectively.
The average and maximum output power of the inverter (i.e.,
the operating power of compressor) with an ordinary compressor
were less than 34.86% and 33.64% corresponding to the inverter
with the variable speed compressor. The average inverter effi-
ciencies of the control system (i.e., the ratio of the DC output power
of the PV array to the output power of the inverter) with the MPPT
controller were 51.22% and 96.24% for the ordinary compressor and
the variable speed compressor, corresponding to an improvement
of 87.90% for the latter. This result occurred because the three-
phase power factor of the ordinary compressor was mismatched
with the inverter power of distributed PVs under various irradiance
levels because the ordinary compressor is designed for constant
power. Therefore, the equivalent impedance of the distributed PV
power system (The PV array and inverter) was mismatched with
the equivalent load impedance of the ordinary compressor and the
distributed PV power system failed to output maximum power to
load.
4.4. Effect of daily total irradiance on the performance
Fig. 7 shows the PPE and refrigeration EER of the solar PV cooling
system under different daily cumulative total irradiances. The PPE
of the control system increased to a maximum of 0.129 under an
optimal irradiance of 16.8 MJ/m2 and then decreased because the
tracking efficiency was extremely reduced when the cumulative
irradiation was low. Although the irradiance was superfluous at
noon, the weight of the influence of tracking instability was greater
than the superfluous solar energy. In contrast, the weight of the
influence of superfluous solar energy was greater than the tracking
instability when the cumulative irradiation was high. In addition,
because the influences of the ice supercooled temperature and
compressor frequency conversion operation were considerable, the
Renewable Energy 172 (2021) 1145e1153
Voltage (V) Frequency (Hz) Current (A) Maximal pressure (MPa)
110e380/415 3e50/60 8.6 High pressure: 4.5
Low pressure: 2.3
380e420/460 50/60 7.4 High pressure: 3.0
Low pressure: 2.0
refrigeration EER increased to a maximum of 2.33 under an optimal
irradiance of 18.2 MJ/m2. Then, it decreased because the EER of the
ice-maker was affected by the supercooled temperature of the
evaporation surface and the variable frequency operation of the
compressor. The EER of the icemaker is mainly affected by the
varied frequency of the compressor under varied instantaneous
irradiance when the cumulative irradiation is low. Therefore, the
influence of the varied frequency of the compressor was greater
than the supercooled temperature of evaporation. In contrast, the
EER of the icemaker is mainly affected by the supercooled tem-
perature of evaporation under superfluous solar energy when the
cumulative irradiation is high. Therefore, the influence of the
supercooled temperature of evaporation was greater than the var-
ied frequency of the compressor.
The OSR increased with the increase of the daily cumulative
total irradiance. It reached 0.852 when the daily cumulative total
irradiance was 22.4 MJ/m2. Finally, the highest COP of the cooling
system for the solar PV cooling system directly driven by distrib-
uted PV reached 0.289, and the daily cumulative total irradiance
was 18.2 MJ/m2. Hence, the supercooled temperature of evapora-
tion was the main influencing factor for the coefficient of perfor-
mance of the PV-driven air conditioner.
5. Conclusions
A PV-driven air conditioner without batteries was designed,
built, and tested in this paper. The efficiency and operating stability
of the system were improved and the ice thermal storage
completely replaced batteries for storing solar energy. The main
conclusions are as follows:
(1) The average PV-to-compressor power efficiency (PPE) and
coefficient of performance (COP) were improved by reducing
the power ratio; correspondingly, the operation stability ra-
tio (OSR) of the compressor was reduced.
(2) The system with a MPPT controller showed good ice-making
capability and reliable operation as well as a great
improvement on the start-up characteristics of the com-
pressors. It remains the stable operation when the solar
1151
G. Li, Y. Han, M. Li et al.
Fig. 7. PPE, refrigeration EER, OSR of the compressor and the COP of the solar PV cooling system under different daily cumulative total irradiance values.
irradiance was greater than 148 W/m2. The average PPE of
the system with the MPPT controller reached 0.124, which
improved 81.7% compared to that of the system with no
MPPT controller.
(3) The average and maximum output power of the ordinary
compressor were less than 34.86% and 33.64% corresponding
to those with the variable speed compressor. The variable
speed compressor was more adaptive for the PV-driven
cooling.
(4) The highest system COP reached 0.289 when the daily cu-
mulative total irradiance was 18.2 MJ/m2 in Kunming, China.
The system with variable speed compressor and a MPPT
controller showed very good ice-making capability and
reliable operation.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (NSFC) [No. 51966019], the Major Science and
Technology Special Project of Yunnan Province [No.
202002AF080002], the Key Laboratory of Solar Heating and Cooling
Technology of Yunnan Provincial Universities, and the Scientific
Research Foundation of Yunnan Education Department [No.
2018JS147].
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