Lifecycle Cost Analysis for Better Air Conditioning Choice in Kuwait Residential Sector

Abstract

Residential air conditioning consumes a huge amount of the produced electrical power from fossil fuel power plants in Kuwait. Energy availability and the consequences on Kuwait’s expenditure associated with producing electricity is a hot topic in this oil producing country. The predominant air conditioning type in Kuwait’s residential sector is packaged direct expansion. An intention to shift to chilled water air conditioning system for future’s houses was announced as a promising solution to save energy. This work is presented to demonstrate how lifecycle cost analysis can be performed to underline tentative issues before shifting to a new air conditioning system for houses in Kuwait. No previous attempts have been made to assess the feasibility of chilled water air conditioning system for houses in Kuwait based on lifecycle cost analysis. The work considered the air conditioning requirements for a block of six typical houses as a baseline for the evaluation. The total cooling load of the studied block of houses was used to estimate the annual electrical energy associated with each air conditioning alternative. This was made by the help of DOE EnergyPlus thermal simulation engine through its interface with DesignBuilder software. Actual financial inputs were penetrated in the analysis; which includes installation, operation and maintenance costs for each studied air conditioning alternative. It was found that chilled water system can conserve about 40% of the annual electrical energy required to operate packaged direct expansion air conditioning. But, due to high installation cost, chilled water system is not cost effective for consumers. The outcomes from the lifecycle cost analysis indicated that it would be cost effective for the government to subsidy the installation of chilled water systems for consumers. This will help to conserve electrical energy associated with conventional systems that are currently in use.