Community Center PDF Download

The Santa Clara Community Center is a 27,000 sq. ft one-story building set in a Mediterranean climate. The peak summer cooling load for the building is estimated to be 5.9 x 106 Btu/day and is roughly twice the estimated peak winter heating load. The solar-driven hydronic system includes 7085 sq. ft of double-glazed flat plate collectors with a selective coating, two 25-ton ARKLA absorption chillers, a 50,000 gallon stratified cold storage tank and a 10,000 gallon hot storage tank. A gas-fired boiler is used for backup. A minicomputer controlled data acquisition system has been providing operational data including detailed energy balances since April 1977. Detailed results for the period of April 1977 to September 1978 are presented. The solar heating and cooling system has performed successfully and dependably during its first two years of operation. Solar collector and absorption chiller performance is lower than expected. System performance during the summer seasons is about the same as predicted giving a solar fraction of load of 0.65. Performance during the winter season is much lower than predicted with a solar fraction of load of 0.40 compared to a predicted value of 0.80. Fossil fuel energy consumption of the system is greater than the estimated consumption of the original non-solar design during some months of the summer season. On an annual basis there is a net savings of fossil energy of about 8 percent.