Energy conservation in commercial air conditioning through ice storage and cold air distribution design

Abstract

This paper investigates the feasibility of the application of ice storage/cold air distribution based air conditioning systems in commercial buildings in the South-Eastern Mediterranean area. An office building currently under construction in Nicosia, Cyprus, has been used as an example in the feasibility study. The objective of the study is to compare the performance of the ice storage/cold air distribution system with conventional all air systems in terms of their capital and running costs using current Cyprus Electricity Authority supply regulations and tariff structures. The results show that the application of ice storage combined with cold air distribution will lead to slightly lower capital cost than the conventional system and would result in significant energy cost savings over the life cycle of the system. Changing current Electricity Authority regulations to allow the same equipment to be operated both on-peak and off-peak tariffs will increase further the first cost advantage of the ice storage/cold air distribution air conditioning system over the conventional system.