1 351 - ORASOL: A French Research Program For Solar Cooling Process Optimization F. Lucas 1* , F. Boudehenn 2 , S. Amblard 3 , J. Castaing-Lavignotes 4 , M. Pons 5 , N. Le Pierres, D. Stitou 7 , D. Mugnier 8 1 Laboratoire de Physique du Bâtiment et des Systèmes (LPBS) Université de La Réunion. 2 Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique – Institut National de l’Energie Solaire 3 Centre Recherche et développement CIAT 4 Laboratoire de Thermique, Energétique et Procédés 5 CNRS-LIMSI, BP 133, F-91403 Orsay Cedex, France 6 Laboratoire optimisation de la conception et ingénierie de l’environnement - INES 7 Laboratoire procédés, matériaux et énergie solaire 8 TECSOL SA * Corresponding Author, lucas@univ-reunion.fr Abstract In recent years, the world market of air conditioning has been increasing very fast. To meet the occupant comfort demand, solar cooling processes offer an ecological promising alternative to conventional air conditioning process. Indeed, these technologies offer satisfactory comfort in building at a very low energy cost (Electrical consumption can be divided par ten to twenty). To allow a wide diffusion of these technologies it is necessary to reduce the installation cost and to guarantee optimal performances. For instance, the investment costs for solar cooling systems are far higher than classical systems investment. However, the running costs of the solar cooling processes are far lower than the classical ones; the cooling power cost is about ten times higher. By developing tools to help the sizing phase and the optimisation of the solar cooling systems, it will be possible to reduce the installation costs, to improve performance and thus overcome the major drawback for a broader use of this technology. This paper describes a French research program proposing both an applied and fundamental study of solar cooling processes. Based on the contribution of eight industrial and scientific partners working within four pools, the project investigates the most promising solar cooling technologies as desiccant cooling process (pool 2), absorption cooling process (pool 3) and thermo-chemical cooling process (pool 4). Pool 1 focuses on the comparison and analysis of the three cooling processes covered by the other pools. Using the pool 1 results, pools 2, 3 and 4 propose a theoretical analysis to develop design tools based on modelling of cooling system components, cooling systems, control components and global cooling system coupled with buildings. An experimental survey is also carried out on five experimental facilities in order to perform an exhaustive validation procedure including also a sensitivity analysis and an inter-software comparison. At the end of the project, within 3 years, the partners will provide : • A thermodynamic analysis of the solar cooling processes, • Sizing tools suitable for preliminary studies, • Optimized sizing tools.