Performance prediction of a solar refrigeration system under various operating pressure of evaporator and condenser.

• Solar driven vapor compression refrigeration system was analyzed. • The effect of condenser's pressure on performance of the system is studied. • The effect of evaporator's pressure on performance of the system is studied. Photovoltaic (PV) solar refrigeration system is considered as one of the most vital areas in photovoltaic application. This research work aims to study the effect of operating pressures of evaporator and condenser to the performance of directly coupled variable speed solar refrigeration system. Performance parameters which were considered in the study are compressor speed, power consumption, refrigerant mass flow rate, and cooling capacity. The working pressure of the refrigeration system at evaporator and condenser were expressed with the saturation temperatures. In this study, a sensitivity analysis was performed with two cases. In the first case, the working saturation temperature of the condenser was fixed to 49 °C while the working saturation temperature of the evaporator was varied from −13 °C to −34 °C. In the second case, the saturation temperature of the evaporator was fixed to −24 °C while the saturation temperature of the condenser was varied from 38 °C to 60 °C. In the first case, it was found that all the considered performance parameters were sensitive to variation in saturation temperature of the evaporator. In the second case, compressor speed and power consumption showed negligible sensitivity to variation in saturation temperature of condenser but the other two performance parameters (refrigerant mass flow rate and cooling capacity) showed significant sensitivity to variation in saturation temperature of condenser. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]