Building cooling, heating and power (BCHP), is an attracting cogeneration system for its economic and environmental friendly qualities. Therefore, it is meaningful to develop Micro-scale BCHP (MBCHP) system based on adsorption chiller and internal combustion gas engine for the use of residential and light commercial buildings. To guide the optimum matching and operation of adsorption chiller in MBCHP system correctly, this paper deals with the performance of adsorption chiller under varying heating conditions. Experimental results show that the value of COP is high in the operation mode of varying hot water inlet temperature with mass recovery in no heating pattern (VTNH). With the hot water inlet temperature of 65 degrees C, the value of COP is as high as 0.40 in VTNH mode. Under electricity output conditions from 6.0 to 8.3 kW in MBCHP system, VTNH mode is especially preferred when cooling demand is with priority. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.