Abstract
The building requires dehumidification for a long period of time in mixed climate zone of China. As a conventional method for dehumidification, vapor compression systems remove the water vapor by cooling the process air below dew point. This system consumes a lot of energy for reheating the air to meet the requirement of supply air temperature. A heat pump combined with two-stage desiccant wheel (TSDW&HP) is proposed as an air conditioning and dehumidification system in this study. The operation performance of proposed system applied in a hypothetical residence with 3 residents was investigated and simulated by using TRNSYS software. The operation modes of the system are discussed for different scenarios of season and outdoor air humidity ratio. In dehumidification season, fresh air deals with all of the latent load. In air conditioning season, fresh air deals with all of the moisture load with part of the cooling load. When evaporation temperature of HP is reduced and more moisture load is processed by evaporator in air conditioning season, there is a balance point between the performance of DWs and heat pump. The energy consumption of TSDW&HP fresh air system was compared with a conventional fresh air conditioner during dehumidification season and air conditioning season. It was found that the energy-saving potential of this system is 27.3% compared with conventional air conditioner.
Highlights
Nowadays, along with the development of construction industry, building energy consumption problems are mentioned constantly and energy consumed by buildings is increasing
It’s apparent that except for the period of high humidity ratio time in dehumidification season, the energy consumption of TSDW&HP fresh air system is lower compared with conventional air conditioner
Energy consumption of TSDW&HP fresh air system is lower than that of conventional air conditioner and the energysaving potential of TSDW&HP system is 27.3% compared with conventional air conditioner
Summary
Along with the development of construction industry, building energy consumption problems are mentioned constantly and energy consumed by buildings is increasing. Water vapor is removed by cooling the process air below dew point When applying this dehumidification method, low evaporation temperature, about 5°C, is required and more energy is consumed by air conditioner. Air-conditioning systems that temperature and humidity are controlled independently are more suitable for this climate zone In this system, cooling panel only deals with indoor sensible load and indoor moisture gain is removed by dehumidified fresh air. This system is more energy efficient than conventional air conditioner due to high evaporation temperature could meet the requirement of cooling. When regeneration air temperature is not high enough after heated by the condenser to remove all of the water adsorbed by DWs, the two electric heaters before two DWs are in-operation to further improve the regeneration air temperature
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