Abstract
Conventional and most optimal design methods for chiller plants often address the annual cooling load distribution of buildings and their peak cooling loads based on typical meteorological year (TMY) data, while the peak cooling load only appears a few times during the life-cycle and the sized chiller plant usually operates within its low efficient region. In this paper, a robust optimal design method based on life-cycle total cost was employed to optimize the design of a chiller plant with quantified analysis of uncertainty and reliability. By using the proposed design method, the optimized chiller plant can operate at its highly efficient region under various cooling load conditions, and provide sufficient cooling capacity even alongside some equipment/systems with failures. The minimum life-cycle total cost, which consists of the capital cost, operation, and availability-risk cost, can be achieved through optimizing the total cooling capacity and the numbers/sizes of chillers. A case study was conducted to illustrate the detailed implementation process of the proposed method. The performance of this design method was evaluated by comparing with that of other design methods.
Highlights
IntroductionIn Hong Kong, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems account for about 40%
In Hong Kong, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems account for about 40%of the total energy consumed in the building sector [1]
The reliability analysis is very important in building an energy system design, which determines whether the system has sufficient capability to fulfill the requirements for both normal conditions and abnormal conditions [30,31]
Summary
In Hong Kong, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems account for about 40%. Of the total energy consumed in the building sector [1]. Among all HVAC components, a chiller plant occupies up to 50% of the total energy consumption, which plays a critical role in determining the energy performance of the whole HVAC system [2]. Proper design of a chiller plant is considered as one of the most effective ways to reduce the energy consumption of the chiller plant, which has attracted increasing attention worldwide
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