Energy analysis of the integration of HRV and direct evaporative cooling for energy efficiency in buildings: a case study in Iraq

Abstract

Responding to climate change and adapting to global warming requires creative solutions. In Iraq, the most reliable and popular tool to have buildings cooled is airconditioning units (AC). While an evaporative cooler is not enough to achieve thermal comfort in a very hot climate, AC units consume a lot of energy which causes a significant load on the grid in Iraq resulting in increasing the emissions of CO2. This paper investigates the potential energy-saving associated with adopting a new arrangement of heat recovery ventilation (HRV) unit and evaporative cooler to achieve thermal comfort with far less energy. Two sets of efficiencies of both HRV and the evaporative cooler have been considered, and two different envelope performances are also investigated. To properly size the proposed system, an iterative process has been used until the smallest size of the proposed system enough to cool the building is determined. The proposed system has achieved considerable energy savings comprising a reduction of up to 66% in the cooling load energy consumption and a reduction of up to 44% in the overall energy consumption.