In the past decades, solar water collectorswere installed for themain purpose of preheating domestic hot
water or to cover a fraction of the space heating demand in China. However, solar cooling systems were
constructed just for demonstration purposes. Since the building of the first solar-powered absorption
cooling system in Shenzhen in 1987, there have been over 10 additional solar cooling demonstration
projects constructed. In this paper, the most representative five projects including both absorption and
adsorption cooling systems are introduced and summarized. From the demonstrations, solar absorption
cooling systems have been shown to be more suitable for large building air-conditioning systems.
Comparatively, solar adsorption cooling systems are more promising for small size air-conditioning
systems. In order to attain high utilization ratio, it is highly recommended to design solar-powered
integrated energy systems in public buildings. In addition, highly efficient heat pumps are considered as
the most appropriate auxiliary heat sources for solar cooling systems, for the purpose of all-weather
operation. In the 11th Five year research project (duration 2006–2010), solar cooling technologies will be
further investigated to achieve a breaking through in the integration of solar cooling systems with
buildings.