High-efficiency recovery for air-conditioning applications in a mild climate: a case study

Abstract

Indoor comfort requirements often involve strong ventilation in buildings, but they clash with the necessity to limit energetic and economic costs connected with supply air handling. The introduction of efficient thermal recovery from return air is therefore fundamental. In air-conditioning applications, also in the presence of the traditional solution which uses cooling coils for air dehumidification, it is possible to increase the reuse of return air thermohygrometric content if compared with simple sensible heat recovery between the two air streams. The opportunities connected with evaporative precooling of return air are analysed here in a frequent application case. The resulting advantages are superior to those ones offered by enthalpy recuperators.