scholarly journals Energy-Saving Potential of Extending Temperature Set-Points in a VRF Air-Conditioned Building

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 2160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joowook Kim ◽  
Doosam Song ◽  
Suyeon Kim ◽  
Sohyun Park ◽  
Youngjin Choi ◽  
...  

Building energy savings and occupant thermal comfort are the main issues in building technology. As such, the development of energy-efficient heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems and the control strategies of HVAC systems are emerging as important topics in the HVAC industry. Variable refrigerant flow (VRF) systems have efficient energy performance, so the use of VRF systems in buildings is increasing. However, most studies on VRF systems focus on improving mechanical efficiency, with few studies on energy-efficient control while satisfying the thermal comfort of occupants. The goal is to estimate the energy-saving potential of adjusting the temperature set-points and dead-band (range) in VRF air-conditioned building. To do so, we analyzed the influence of control strategies of a VRF system on human thermal comfort and energy consumption using a simulation method. The results showed that energy consumption can be reduced by 25.4% for predicted mean vote (PMV)-based control and 27.0% for the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) comfort range control compared with the typical set-point temperature control of a VRF system. The indoor thermal environments of the analyzed control strategies are controlled in the thermal comfort range, which is based on a PMV at ±0.5. Compared with the typical set-point control, PMV and ASHRAE comfort range-based control reduced the operation time of the compressor in the VRF system.

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-529 ◽  
Author(s):  
S Chraibi ◽  
P Creemers ◽  
C Rosenkötter ◽  
EJ van Loenen ◽  
MBC Aries ◽  
...  

Sensor-triggered control strategies can limit the energy consumption of lighting by considering the presence of users in the office and dimming lighting down when it is not needed. In multi-user offices, the application of occupancy-based dimming at room level limits the energy saving potential. However, zone- or desk-based dimming may affect the comfort of co-workers due to its dynamics. This paper reports the assessment by 17 participants (30–50 years of age) of occupancy-based dimming in a mock-up office, using different dimming speeds. Participants consisted of co-workers experiencing changes triggered by others, and actors triggering these light changes. While the participants performed an office-based task, the luminaire above the actors’ desk was dimmed from approximately 550 lx to 350 lx (average horizontal illuminance), and vice versa. The participants evaluated the dimming conditions regarding their noticeability and acceptability. The study showed that the noticeability of light changes due to dimming, increases when fading times become shorter. Dimming with a fading time of at least two seconds was experienced as acceptable by more than 70% of the participants. The results of this experiment provide insights to system behaviour that does not compromise user experience while addressing energy efficient use of electric lighting.


Author(s):  
Mahmoud A. Hassan

Low energy architect is a major target of building researchers and designers worldwide. Obviously, any portion of energy that can be saved in this respect can be directed to industrial processes, if any. Building energy consumption can be reduced through various systems such as air conditioning (a major building energy consumer), lighting, equipment, etc. In regions where energy is limited or scarce, air conditioning would have to be replaced by natural ventilation for the removal of the building heat load for thermal comfort. Also, energy conservation issues are being more important in hot arid regions, especially because the building are consuming more than 60% of electric energy generated and about 65% of this energy is consumed for cooling. There is a set of complex factors, which determine energy needs in building, such as solar radiation, type of A/C systems, building operation, thermal properties of the building envelop... etc. In the present decade the aim is to discuss the advantage of energy efficient building design. There is several ways to reduce the energy consumed for the human comfort process, but what is the most energy efficient or more energy saving from these ways. One of these is the insulation, which can be used for insulating the wall and the roof, which subjected to the large amount of the solar heat gain. The insulation of the roof is intended to maximize resident’s thermal comfort and minimize energy consumption of housing. The parameters, which are effect on the thermal performance of the roof, are the color, general construction, insulation and ventilation. This paper present the effect of insulation of the roof on the amount of energy consumed for different types of insulation in order to select the suitable insulation which give the minimum cost and maximum energy saving. This work was done using an energy software program (Visual DOE). This paper provided suggestions to improve the building construction for the thermal comfort. A parametric analysis was investigated for the economic analysis of various insulating building materials.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Rongjiang Ma ◽  
Shen Yang ◽  
Xianlin Wang ◽  
Xi-Cheng Wang ◽  
Ming Shan ◽  
...  

Air-conditioning systems contribute the most to energy consumption among building equipment. Hence, energy saving for air-conditioning systems would be the essence of reducing building energy consumption. The conventional energy-saving diagnosis method through observation, test, and identification (OTI) has several drawbacks such as time consumption and narrow focus. To overcome these problems, this study proposed a systematic method for energy-saving diagnosis in air-conditioning systems based on data mining. The method mainly includes seven steps: (1) data collection, (2) data preprocessing, (3) recognition of variable-speed equipment, (4) recognition of system operation mode, (5) regression analysis of energy consumption data, (6) constraints analysis of system running, and (7) energy-saving potential analysis. A case study with a complicated air-conditioning system coupled with an ice storage system demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method. Compared with the traditional OTI method, the data-mining-based method can provide a more comprehensive analysis of energy-saving potential with less time cost, although it strongly relies on data quality in all steps and lacks flexibility for diagnosing specific equipment for energy-saving potential analysis. The results can deepen the understanding of the operating data characteristics of air-conditioning systems.


2014 ◽  
Vol 493 ◽  
pp. 74-79
Author(s):  
Y.A. Sabtalistia ◽  
S.N.N. Ekasiwi ◽  
B. Iskandriawan

Energy consumption for air conditioning systems (air conditioning system) increased along with the increasing need for fresh air and comfortable in the room especially apartments. FAC system (Floor Air Conditioning) is growing because it is more energy efficient than CAC (Ceiling Air Conditioning) system. However, the position of the AC supply is on the lower level at the FAC system causes draft discomfort becomes greater as air supply closer to the occupants so that thermal comfort can be reduced. Heat mixture of windows, exterior walls, kitchen, and occupants in the studio apartment affect thermal comfort in the room too.This study aims to determine the position of the AC supply which has the best thermal comfort of FAC system in the studio apartment. It can be done by analyzing ADPI (Air Diffusion Performance Index), the distribution of air temperature, wind speed, RH (Relative Humidity), and DR (Draft Risk) to change the position of the AC supply supported by CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulation.This result prove that AC position 2 (on wall near the kitchen) is more comfortable than AC position 1 (on the bathroom wall) because AC position 2 away from occupied areas, thereby reducing the occurrence of draught discomfort.


2011 ◽  
Vol 280 ◽  
pp. 71-75
Author(s):  
Zhong Chao Zhao ◽  
Dong Hui Zhang ◽  
Yu Ping Chen

In this paper, the operation mechanism of combined air-conditioning system with temperature and humidity decoupled treatment (CACSTHDT) was presented, and the energy saving potential and economics of CACSTHDT were primarily analyzed through compared with a traditional air-conditioning system. The results indicated that CACSTHDT could save up to 28.64% energy consumption in comparison with a traditional air-conditioning system. The operating cost in one summer only was 71.36% of that cost of traditional air-conditioning system.


2011 ◽  
Vol 243-249 ◽  
pp. 5899-5904 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Yun Li ◽  
Kai Guo ◽  
Ran Du ◽  
Hai Cheng Li ◽  
Yun Guo Yang

The paper gives energy consumption indexes of government organization office buildings at the current stage, and then analyses energy-saving potential of office buildings. Further, it discusses building consumption has a correlation between the heating form of air conditioning and personnel density. Finally, the paper presents the energy consumption quota and the formulating method of using energy quota of state organ office buildings at the current stage.


2021 ◽  
Vol 246 ◽  
pp. 08005
Author(s):  
A.S. Strongin ◽  
A.M. Zhivov

In geographical areas with cold climates, large, massively constructed industrial and warehouse buildings and logistics complexes are large consumers of energy resources. The great height and large contained volumes of the premises, the presence of a significant number of doors, and building configurations that include many transport corridors all require the use of air-thermal curtains to increase the energy efficiency of the buildings’ heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems, which commonly produce several thousand kilowatts of thermal power. Optimization of air curtains can improve the microclimates of the premises, achieve savings in the initial construction costs, and also reduce energy consumption during operation by 10–20%.


Volume 3 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Essam E. Khalil ◽  
Ramiz Kameel

The balance between thermal comfort and air quality in healthcare facilities to optimize the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is the main aim of this paper. The present paper will present this balance from the viewpoint of the air conditioning design. It was found that the design of the HVAC airside systems plays an important role for achieving the optimum air quality beside the optimum comfort level. This paper highlights the importance of the proper airside design on the IAQ. The present paper introduces some recommendations for airside designs to facilitate the development of optimum HVAC systems. This paper also stresses on the factors that improve the thermal comfort and air quality for the already existed systems (for maintenance procedure). To design an optimum HVAC airside system that provides comfort and air quality in the air-conditioned spaces with efficient energy consumption is a great challenge. The present paper defines the current status, future requirements, and expectations. Based on this analysis and the vast progress of computers and associated software, the artificial intelligent technique will be a competitor candidate to the experimental and numerical techniques. Finally, the researches that relate between the different designs of the HVAC systems and energy consumption should concern with the optimization of airside design as the expected target to enhance the indoor environment. The present paper reviews the results of recent advances that are concerned with the HVAC design engineering in the healthcare applications. The following requirements are necessary for Health and hygiene considerations: • Air movements are to be restricted in and between the various hospital departments (no cross movement). • Appropriate ventilation and filtration is used to dilute and reduce contamination in the form of odour, air-borne micro organisms, viruses, hazardous chemical and radioactive substances. • Temperature and relative humidity are to be regulated and attained for various medical areas. • Environmental compliance conditions should be maintained, accurately controlled and monitored.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Francesco Cigarini ◽  
Tu-Anh Fay ◽  
Nikolay Artemenko ◽  
Dietmar Göhlich

In battery electric buses (e-buses), the substantial energy consumption of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system can cause significant reductions of the available travel range. Additionally, HVAC systems are often operated at higher levels than what required for the thermal comfort of the passengers. Therefore, this paper proposes a method to experimentally investigate the influence of the HVAC system on the energy consumption and thermal comfort in a 12m e-bus. An appropriate thermal comfort model is identified and the required climatic input parameters are selected and measured with self-developed sensor stations. The energy consumption of the e-bus, the state of charge (SoC) of the battery and the available travel range are measured by an embedded data logger. Climatic measurements are then performed with heating on and off on a Berlin bus line in winter conditions. The results show that the energy consumption of the e-bus is increased by a factor of 1.9 with heating on, while both the SoC and travel range are reduced accordingly. Comparing the thermal comfort with heating on and off, a decrease from “comfortable” to “slightly uncomfortable but acceptable” is observed.


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