Cooling Potential for Single and Advanced Absorption Cooling Systems in a Geothermal Field in Mexico

Abstract

Climate change is one of the main problems humanity is currently facing due to the use of fossil fuels. At present, 20% of the total electricity consumed in buildings worldwide is for air conditioning. The development and use of thermally driven cooling systems is very important, since they can be activated by renewable energies, such as geothermal, reducing the consumption of electricity produced by fossil fuels. In this paper, we analyze a geothermal field located in the state of Jalisco, Mexico, with the aim of comparing the performance of different advanced absorption cooling systems driven by a geothermal heat source. The analysis includes the influence of water temperature obtained from an abandoned geothermal well, using a U tube heat exchanger inside the well. The results show that this well can reach temperatures from 59 °C to 190 °C, depending on the depth of the U tube and the insulation thickness. At a TE = 8 °C, the operating range temperatures were 59–80 °C, 77–110 °C, 135–162 °C, and 180–187 °C for the half-effect, single-effect, double-effect and triple-effect systems, respectively. The maximum cooling potential was 99,334 GW obtained with the double-effect system, followed by 92,995 GW with the triple-effect system, 70,939 GW with the single-effect system, and 38,721 GW with the half-effect system.