Sustainable cooling solutions in Dubai: the impact of incident radiation and panel angles on solar AC performance

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.