A room-cooling system of 2 kW capacity fueled by wood pellets was designed, built and tested. The system was demonstrated during summer at the Yakushima Field Station of Kagoshima University, Japan. It contained a pellet feeder, a pellet burner, a heat exchanger, a lithium bromide-water absorption heat pump and a control unit. The volume of the test room was 36.9 m(3) and ambient temperature 30 degrees C. The airflow temperature from the room unit was decreased to 16 degrees C by the system, and the room temperature could be successfully controlled to 24 degrees C steady state. Room heating in winter was also demonstrated. Since the air was heat exchanged, the overall energy efficiency of the cooling system was low at about 19%. However, the calculation based on the heat flow showed that the efficiency could be enhanced to about 75% by direct heating of the regenerator by the flue gas. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.